Navigation – Plan du site

AccueilNuméros48-2Ireland’s Humanitarian Efforts in...

Ireland’s Humanitarian Efforts in Post-War Europe, 1945-1950: The Forgotten Irish Helping Hand

Les efforts humanitaires de l’Irlande dans l’Europe d’après-guerre, 1945-1950 : le coup de main irlandais oublié
Jérôme aan de Wiel
p. 7-22

Résumés

Les efforts humanitaires de l’Irlande dans l’après-guerre, de 1945 à 1950, restent inconnus. Pourtant, de nombreuses archives à travers le continent démontrent que le pays envoya d’importantes quantités de nourriture, vêtements et médicaments d’Amsterdam jusqu’aux îles grecques. Il s’agissait d’un effort collectif de l’État et de la nation dans lequel participèrent le gouvernement, les Églises, le peuple et des associations bénévoles. Le présent article est un résumé de cette histoire.

Haut de page

Texte intégral

  • 1 Jérôme aan de Wiel, Ireland’s Helping Hand to Europe, 1945-1950: Combatting Hunger from Normandy to (...)
  • 2 Ireland through European Eyes: Western Europe, the EEC and Ireland, 1945-1973, Mervyn O’Driscoll, D (...)

1The author presents here some of the findings of a completed research project and published book entitled Ireland’s Helping Hand to Europe, 1945-1950: Combatting Hunger from Normandy to Tirana.1 It is based on large-scale research undertaken in archives in Ireland and across the European continent and it shows how an important relief network involving the Irish government, people, Churches, and charities, was responsible for transporting supplies to those in need from France to the Balkans. Apart from a few lines in a book published in 2013 entitled Ireland through European Eyes: Western Europe, the EEC and Ireland, 1945-1973,2 there is nothing of substance on the history of Ireland’s post-war aid to Europe despite the mass of available primary sources. This intensive relief networking remains practically unknown and was never explored by historians. This article explains why and describes some of Ireland’s achievements in the field of post-war humanitarianism.

  • 3 “Ireland’s Gift for Relief of Europe’s Needy”, Irish Independent, 27 July 1950, online (subscriptio (...)
  • 4 “French War Victims Thank Eire”, Irish Independent, 25 September 1947 (INA); “France Says ‘Thanks’” (...)
  • 5 Dermot Keogh, Ireland and Europe, 1919-1948, Dublin, Gill and Macmillan, 1988, p. 1-2.
  • 6 Joseph Lee in Mervyn O’Driscoll, Ireland, Germany and the Nazis: Politics and Diplomacy, 1919-1939, (...)

2“I think the world should know how much the Irish people have done to relieve distress in Europe”.3 So spoke John B. McCloskey, the representative of the National Catholic Welfare Conference (NCWC) in Paris in July 1950. Three years before, in September 1947, Éamon de Valera had been in the city to receive a decoration for Ireland’s humanitarian aid to France. When he was asked if other European countries had shown gratitude, he replied that Dublin had received “hundreds of thousands of letters of appreciation” sent from individuals and groups from across the continent. He said that “if a chronicler had an opportunity of examining them all, […] a very interesting chapter might be added to the history of Europe in those terrible years”.4 The Taoiseach had by no means exaggerated, but the chronicle was never written. McCloskey’s and de Valera’s statements go a long way to illustrate what two eminent historians of modern Irish history, Dermot Keogh and Joseph Lee, have respectively written, namely that the history of the relations between Ireland and continental European countries during the 20th century “has not been tackled in any systematic way”5 and has been “grossly neglected”.6 Keogh and Lee’s point was more recently emphasised again by Mervyn O’Driscoll who has pertinently commented:

  • 7 Mervyn O’Driscoll, “‘We are trying to do our share’: The Construction of Positive Neutrality and Ir (...)

The Irish post-war aid project was and remains unprecedented in scale and national involvement in the history of Irish humanitarianism. It is paradoxical that it is not remembered. That is another riddle. It would seem to have a lot to do with the “history wars” over the rights and wrongs of the Irish “Emergency” [Ireland’s neutrality during the war] and the debate over Irish post-war insularity.7

Regarding the 20th century, historians have concentrated on Ireland’s relations with the English-speaking world for obvious historic reasons but with the result that the country’s relations with European countries have indeed been severely neglected although more and more publications on the topic have seen the light of day in recent years, notably through the activities of Irish studies on the European continent.

  • 8 Jessica Reinisch, “Introduction. Relief in the Aftermath of War”, Journal of Contemporary History, (...)
  • 9 William I. Hitchcock, Liberation: The Bitter Road to Freedom, Europe, 1944-1945, London, Faber and (...)
  • 10 Ian Kershaw, The End: Germany, 1944-45, London, Penguin Books, 2012, p. 181.
  • 11 Jérôme aan de Wiel, Ireland’s Helping Hand to Europe, 1945-1950…, p. 11.

3To this English-speaking dimension must be added another explanation of a more international dimension. As Jessica Reinisch has explained, the history of relief has been uncomfortably squeezed in between end-of-World-War-II studies and beginning-of-Cold-War studies, becoming “either a postscript to military encounters [during the war] or a simple stepping stone to subsequent Cold War clashes. […] both perspectives are problematic and inadequate”.8 Also, the history of the plight of civilians has been neglected for decades because it did not fit the heroic narrative of the liberation of Western Europe and the triumph of liberal democracy. For example, that 70,000 French people died during Allied bombing raids is not a fact that one often reads.9 The same holds true for Eastern Europe liberated by the Soviets. The estimated 1,400,000 German women raped by the Red Army,10 and the brutal expulsion of millions of ethnic Germans were taboo subjects. But the history of civilians during the Second World War and its aftermath is now at last receiving far more attention. An extra argument might be added. At first sight, the history of relief might not seem exciting. If it is not about D-Day in Normandy or Operation Paperclip, then what exciting facts could the history of relief possibly bring to light?11 In fact, an awful lot, as research for this project has revealed – and humanitarianism is not above high politics. These combined factors help to explain why the history of Ireland’s post-war aid got stuck in what might be called a historiographical no man’s land.

4A few words on the methodological approach to this research project might be of interest. After having done extensive research in archives in Ireland, the author contacted archives on the continent in order to have both sides of the story: from the perspective of those who gave and of those who were at the receiving end of Irish humanitarianism. First, places where Irish aid had been sent were located. Then, over 200 e-mails were sent to archives in the Netherlands, Belgium, Britain, Luxembourg, France, Italy, Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Austria, Liechtenstein, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia, and Albania. The contacted archives were at local, regional, national, ecclesiastical, and Red-Cross levels. The results went far beyond expectations. About half of the archives responded and accepted to begin research. Photocopies or digital copies of documents were sent to the author from Saint-Lô to Warsaw. Also of crucial importance were the archives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the League of Red Cross Societies in Geneva even more since much of the relevant archives of the Irish Red Cross Society (IRCS) in Dublin apparently perished in a fire. The archives in Switzerland shed much light on the activities of the IRCS as many reports were sent from Dublin to Geneva and from Geneva to Dublin (duplicates of sent documents having been kept).

  • 12 See the report entitled “Convoyeurbericht von Dr. A. Vaudaux über den 1. Blockzug der CMS zur Verso (...)
  • 13 Joint Relief Commission of the International Red Cross (JRC), “Donation of the Irish Government to (...)
  • 14 International Centre for Relief to Civilian Populations, “Irish Gift 1946, Report No. VII, Hungary” (...)
  • 15 Report by Hungarian Ministry of Welfare, Department VI/3, undated but very likely 1946, Budapest Ci (...)

5In this tapestry of archives, facts and stories abounded and some were rather astonishing. It was supplies from Ireland and Switzerland that were the first non-allied foreign supplies to be allowed into the four Allied occupation sectors of Berlin in January 1946 after successful negotiations between the Soviet High Command and Dr. August Lindt, ICRC delegate and family of the famous Swiss chocolate makers. The epic train journey carrying the supplies from Basel to Berlin is worthy of a movie.12 It was supplies from Ireland that were the first non-allied supplies to be allowed into the Soviet-occupied zone of Germany, the future German Democratic Republic or East Germany.13 3,200,000 Hungarians out of a total of 9,000,000 got 200 grams of Irish sugar each.14 In Budapest in 1946, the Ministry of Welfare, controlled by the Stalinists, drew a list of some 542 institutions and groups in the city that got Irish sugar, including Catholics, Protestants, Jews, carpenters, bankers, single mothers, members of the political police, etc.15

  • 16 Catherine Rey-Schyrr, Histoire du Comité international de la Croix-Rouge, vol. III, 1945-1955: de Y (...)
  • 17 Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin, London, Vintage Books, 2011, p. 287-2 (...)
  • 18 Tony Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945, London, Vintage Books, 2010, p. 20-21.
  • 19 Ibid., p. 82.
  • 20 Keith Lowe, Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II, London, Penguin Books, 2013, (...)
  • 21 William I. Hitchcock, Liberation…, p. 126-127 and 183-189.
  • 22 Tony Judt, Postwar…, p. 82-83, 84-85 and 86.

6What did Europe look like in May 1945? The continent was beyond adequate words to describe. In a nutshell, the following are some of the cold facts, the list being very far from complete. Between 20,000,000 and 25,000,000 Soviets (if not more) had been killed.16 About 5,400,000 Jews and between 100,000 and 300,000 Roma had been exterminated by the Nazis.17 There were 300,000 orphans in Yugoslavia.18 90% of Warsaw had been destroyed.19 80% of Minsk was in rubble and 10,000,000 Ukrainians were homeless.20 A total of 2,700,000 tons of bombs had been dropped on Germany causing the destruction of 3,600,000 homes.21 The destruction of infrastructure was massive. There was no bridge left standing across the Seine between Paris and Le Havre and only one was useable across the Rhine. This would hinder the relief operations. However, incessant Allied bombing raids had destroyed cities in Germany but only 20% of the industry. By June 1946, 93% of German railroads and 800 German bridges had been repaired. The astonishingly rapid repairs were crucially important for the relief operations.22

  • 23 Ben Shephard, The Long Road Home: The Aftermath of the Second World War, London, The Bodley Head, 2 (...)
  • 24 Jérôme aan de Wiel, Ireland’s Helping Hand to Europe, 1945-1950…, p. 105-108 and 295-301.
  • 25 Quoted in Keith Lowe, Savage Continent…, p. xiv.

7Food was scarce. When the war ended, the inhabitants of the Western Netherlands were trying to survive on 400 calories a day, the normal number of daily calories being around 2,400. According to Red Cross reports, many people had to live on a diet of 1,000 calories or less notably in Germany, Hungary, and Austria. To finish, over 11,000,000 Displaced Persons (DPs) were roaming on the roads of Europe or stuck in camps.23 A certain number of Irish men and women volunteered to help DPs and others on the continent although their exact number remains difficult to establish.24 As The New York Times put it, “Europe is in a condition which no American can hope to understand. [It is the] New Dark Continent”.25 Europe was shattered and bankrupt. There were many mouths to be fed and many bodies to be clothed. Some countries and organisations were immediately prepared to help and among them was Ireland.

  • 26 Richard Doherty, Irish Men and Women in the Second World War, Dublin, Four Courts Press, 1999, p. 2 (...)
  • 27 Jérôme aan de Wiel, Ireland’s Helping Hand to Europe, 1945-1950…, p. 28-35.

8Ireland had remained neutral during the war in a show of independence towards Britain, its former colonial master. Yet, the term “neutral” is in fact hardly appropriate as the Irish authorities had secretly collaborated with the Western Allies on a large scale and as up to nearly 80,000 Irish men and women had joined the British forces.26 The term “crypto ally” is more appropriate.27 But it is a fact that the country had remained isolated. Foreseeing possible attempts to isolate Ireland after the war, de Valera wrote to his friend Seán T. O’Kelly in 1943 concerning a financial donation to Bengal in the throes of a famine:

  • 28 Quoted in David McCullagh, De Valera, vol. II, Rule 1932-1975, Dublin, Gill and Macmillan, 2018, p. (...)

[We will send £100,000 to Bengal] to show that we are not unmindful of the misery in the world around us from which we have been so far providentially saved. […] An effort will be made to isolate us in the post war period. […] This seems to me to be an excellent opportunity to break through the net.28

  • 29 Jérôme aan de Wiel, Ireland’s Helping Hand to Europe, 1945-1950…, p. 61 and 425 ; Shane Lehane, A H (...)
  • 30 Mervyn O’Driscoll, “We are trying to do our share’…”, p. 24-25.
  • 31 Memorandum, Department of Finance, 25 April 1945, NAI, DFA, 6/419/4.

9In April 1945, a meeting of top civil servants took place in Dublin during which the decision was effectively taken to begin relief operations as soon as the war ended. Joseph Walshe, the influential secretary for external affairs, stamped the meeting with his authority and expertise. Diplomatic reports indicated that two other neutral countries, Sweden and Switzerland, were about to embark on large-scale relief operations. But to speak of neutral peer pressure would be exaggerated. During the war, the Irish government and voluntary societies like the IRCS and the Irish Save the Children Fund (ISCF) had already tried to send supplies to starving Greece, but communicating with Greece was difficult and the British were opposed to breaking their naval blockade. Money was sent instead. Some supplies had reached Spain and the Vatican though.29 Ireland had planned at least seven relief operations between 1943 and the end of the war, but the logistics were too complex.30 Walshe argued that relief was a way to get Ireland out of her self-imposed isolation and to gain international publicity and gratitude.31 But despite their political calculations, there were other motives at work. Those in authority were also driven by genuine humanitarian concerns.

  • 32 Arthur Griffith to Hugh Law, 10 April 1922, NAI DE 2/269, Documents on Irish Foreign Policy, docume (...)

10Back in April 1922, about two months before the beginning of the Civil War in Ireland, Arthur Griffith, the president of Dáil Éireann, still found time and money to send £1,000 (€65,000) to starving Russia.32 In fact, Irish relief was an expression of Christian solidarity between the nations. As Kevin O’Sullivan has written:

  • 33 Kevin O’Sullivan, “‘Ah, Ireland, the caring nation’: Foreign Aid and Irish State Identity in the Lo (...)

From the early twentieth century, the Irish public’s vision of the developing world was dominated by images from missionary magazines and the – often deeply personal – recollections of relatives, neighbours and friends who lived and worked in far-flung mission stations across Africa, Asia and Latin America.33

  • 34 A. V. Miroshnikov, Tri veka Irlandii, vol. II, 1845-1900, Voronezh, Istoki, 2014, p. 10; Rudolf Ags (...)

A strong sense developed that Irish values were based on Christianity, justice, and peace. In 1945, that sense and identification with missionary work was going to be channelled into aid for Europe. There was also an almost direct connection with the past. The year 1945 marked the hundredth anniversary of the beginning of the Great Irish Famine in 1845. Many politicians, journalists and clergymen asked the people not to forget that continental countries had come to Ireland’s aid during the famine. For example, the Russian government had sent £2,644 (€323,000) while money had been collected in Austria and sent to Archbishop Murray of Dublin and the Ottoman Empire had sent food supplies.34

  • 35 Dáil Éireann, “Committee on Finance. Statement by the Taoiseach: Distress in Europe”, Dáil Éireann (...)

11On 18 May 1945, de Valera presented the relief scheme to the Dáil. He explained that the government put at the disposal of continental countries supplies of food, cattle, clothes, and medicines for a total value of £3,000,000 (€126,000,000). Everything was for free. He added the caveat, however, that the continentals had to come to collect the supplies as Ireland did not have the required fleet for transport.35 The Dáil unanimously approved the government’s initiative and de Valera declared:

  • 36 Ibid., mentioned in Jérôme aan de Wiel, Ireland’s Helping Hand to Europe, 1945-1950…, p. 78.

I should like to say that I am not surprised at the way in which the offer has been received from all sides of the House. It is exactly what I expected. Of course, at best, I am sorry to say that what we will be able to do will be only a drop in the ocean.36

  • 37 Eire, 1946-47: Estimates for Public Services for the Year Ending 31st March, 1947, Dublin, Statione (...)
  • 38 Quoted in Dermot Keogh, Jews in Twentieth-Century Ireland: Refugees, Anti-Semitism and the Holocaus (...)
  • 39 Bernadette Whelan, “Integration or Isolation? Ireland and the Invitation to Join the Marshall Plan” (...)
  • 40 “Society’s Aid for Children of Europe”, Irish Independent, 19 July 1946 (INA).

12Indeed, Ireland did obviously not have the capacity to save Europe, only the great powers did. But every bit was a helping hand. Yet it was a rather magnanimous gesture considering that Ireland was not a particularly rich country. The annual budget for public services was just over £50,000,000, including for example about £4,300,000 to run primary schools and £2,200,000 for child allowances.37 Also, there was appalling misery almost on the government’s very doorstep. Before the war, Rabbi Isaac Herzog, the first Chief Rabbi of Ireland (1922-1936) and soon to be Chief Rabbi of Israel (1948-1959), wrote: “Dublin, from what I have seen, has the worst slum conditions anywhere in Europe”,38 while David Gray, the American minister in Dublin, wrote after the war that there were over 300,000 people living in cramped tenements, many not having the means to buy a few slices of bacon.39 In 1945, the St. Vincent de Paul Society had paid 385,000 visits to poor Irish families.40

13James Dillon, now an independent deputy after he had opposed the neutrality policy favoured by his former party, Fine Gael, said in the Dáil:

  • 41 Dáil Éireann, “Committee on Finance. Statement by the Taoiseach: Distress in Europe”.

The whole world, emerging from the maelstrom of war and the hatreds engendered by war, may be misled into forgetting that all men are our neighbours, and that a hungry German is as much deserving of pity as a hungry Pole, and that if a woman or her children are afflicted in the territory of the Reich, they are as much a charge upon our charity and love as would be an oppressed and afflicted person in Poland, Holland, Belgium, Denmark or Norway.41

  • 42 Jérôme aan de Wiel, Ireland’s Helping Hand to Europe, 1945-1950…, p. 78.
  • 43 “L’Irlande veut secourir ‘l’Allemagne malheureuse’”, Libres, 19 October 1945, NAI, DFA, 414/7.

14This was the spirit of relief that Ireland would follow: to make no distinction between the victorious and the vanquished nations. In this regard, it aligned itself on the humanitarian philosophy of the International Red Cross and not on that of the recently created United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA, of which it was not a member) which did not look after the German population.42 This was not always understood by the countries that had suffered under German occupation and because immediately after the war the relief of German civilians was not a priority on the Allies’ agenda. The French newspaper Libres, for instance, published a sarcastic article entitled “L’Irlande veut secourir ‘l’Allemagne malheureuse’” (“Ireland Wants to Help ‘Poor Germany’”) and quoted an unnamed Irish minister who had criticised General Eisenhower for not caring about the Germans.43

  • 44 “Ook Ierland zendt hulp naar Europa”, Katinpers, 20 May 1945, online on Delpher.
  • 45 “Sinterklaas komt ditmaal uit Ierland”, Nieuwe Leidsche Courant, 5 October 1945, online on leiden.c (...)

15It was decided to divide the £3,000,000 into five equal parts: one fifth each to France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, and the International Red Cross in Geneva. The International Red Cross would look after Central and Eastern Europe. Irish humanitarian aid on the continent became known in French as the Don irlandais as Switzerland’s became known as the Don suisse. News of Ireland’s aid spread like wildfire. On 19 and 20 May, Dutch resistance bulletins reported on the sensational news from Dublin. The Katinpers, the mouthpiece of the Catholic resistance movement, printed an article entitled “Ook Ierland zendt hulp naar Europa” (“Ireland Too Sends Aid to Europe”).44 Soon bilateral negotiations began. In September, a Dutch delegation travelled to Dublin to organise the shipment of supplies. In October, the local press announced the arrival of 220 Irish cattle in Rotterdam, the first ones of a total consignment of 4,000.45 Patrick Donaldson, a twenty-five-year-old Irishman living in the city, wrote to the Department of External Affairs in Dublin:

  • 46 Patrick Donaldson to probably the Department of External Affairs, 10 October 1945, NAI, DFA, 6/419/ (...)

I was reading the Dutch papers today, they told us you were sending over [supplies] for the poor Dutch people. “Thanks very much” all the Dutch people say when they see me going to my work.46

  • 47 “Hier is Nederland”, Limburgsch Dagblad, 29 October 1945, online on Delpher.

16De Valera was offered a china vase and 100,000 flower bulbs as a token of gratitude by the Dutch authorities and was extremely pleased.47 The French, Belgians, Italians, and the International Red Cross soon contacted the Irish authorities too. In the end, the Dutch, the Italians, and the International Red Cross took the Irish supplies for free, the French paid for some, and the Belgians paid for all.

  • 48 Phyllis Gaffney, “A Hospital for the Ruins: The Irish Hospital at Saint-Lô”, in Southern Ireland an (...)
  • 49 William I. Hitchcock, Liberation…, p. 21-21 and 40-41.
  • 50 Phyllis Gaffney, “A Hospital for the Ruins…”, p. 104.
  • 51 Phyllis Gaffney, “Why Was Ireland Given Special Treatment?…”, p. 159 (my translation).

17In the meantime, the Irish hospital in Saint-Lô in Normandy was up and running. This extraordinary story has been told by Phyllis Gaffney.48 Even before Irish supplies were sent to the continent, the IRCS had been thinking of doing something on the grand scale, no doubt inspired by the activities of the Swiss and Swedish Red Cross societies. After D-Day in June 1944, the progress of the Allies in Normandy was more difficult than had been expected. 20,000 civilians lost their lives during the Battle of Normandy.49 The town of Saint-Lô had been 90% obliterated and became known as “la capitale des ruines”.50 In August 1944, the IRCS contacted the Provisional Committee of the French Red Cross in London. At first, the sending of an ambulance unit was discussed but eventually it was decided to set up a hospital, l’Hôpital irlandais as it became known in Saint-Lô. The French minister in Dublin reported to Paris that it would cost the Irish £100,000 (€4,191,000). According to him, it was clear that the Irish government “obviously wishe[d] to re-strengthen the ties between the two peoples [France and Ireland] and, more generally, to multiply its direct relations with continental countries of which France is the closest”.51

  • 52 “Work at Saint-Lô Ends; Irish Hospital Staff for Warsaw”, Irish Independent, 11 January 1947 (INA).
  • 53 Phyllis Gaffney, “A Hospital for the Ruins…”, p. 110.
  • 54les joyeux pionniers de médecins sans frontières” (livre d’or (visitors’ book) of the town of Sain (...)

18In August 1945, the Menapia left for France, loaded with all the necessary medical equipment. According to the Irish Independent, “the staff, entirely Irish, comprises seven doctors, thirty nurses, two ambulance men, three technicians, and four secretaries”.52 Samuel Beckett, the future Nobel Prize in literature (1969), worked as an interpreter. In December 1945, the hospital was finally ready. In January 1946, the first French baby was born there and appropriately called Patrick.53 The hospital’s services were free of charge. A year later, in January 1947, the Irish medical team left after an emotional farewell. The hospital had proven to be a costly affair to run for the IRCS at about £50,000 (€2,131,000) a semester. It continued to be in use for the next ten years. Although the staff was by now French, it was still referred to as the Hôpital irlandais. The final thought on this remarkable humanitarian episode belongs to Marie-Anne Théot, whose daughter was looked after by the Irish. In 1996, she described the Irish medical team as “the merry pioneers of Doctors without Borders”.54 Saint-Lô has not forgotten its Irish connection as commemoration ceremonies have taken place regularly.

  • 55 Jérôme aan de Wiel, Ireland’s Helping Hand to Europe, 1945-1950…, p. 416.
  • 56Il faut aider l’Albanie qui a déjà tant souffert” (ibid.).

19The International Red Cross provided the IRCS and Ireland with their first real contacts with distant Eastern and Central European countries. During a conference in Geneva, it was the Albanians who first approached the Irish and asked for immediate aid, which they got.55 “Albania that has suffered so much already, must be helped”, in the words of Dr. Elmas Konjari of the Albanian Red Cross.56 The transport of supplies from Ireland to the Balkans was a complex, long, and venturous affair but eventually they got there. Ships left Dublin for Bayonne. From Bayonne, the supplies were then brought by train to Geneva. From Geneva, they left either by train or by truck to Yugoslavia, Albania, and Bulgaria. Alternatively, ships were used to bring the supplies from Marseille to Romania. This put Ireland, this terra incognita for many a mind, firmly on the map of Europe. As the International Red Cross delegate reported from Sofia in 1946:

  • 57 Georges Sotiroff, “Impressions from the Distribution of the Irish Supplies in the Balkans”, receive (...)

I was present at the distribution of [Irish] condensed milk to the children of two kindergartens in Sofia and saw how mothers came running to watch the procedure. Very often I was asked: “How did the Irish come to think of us?”57

  • 58 Keith Jeffery, Ireland and the Great War, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000, p. 59-60.

20Indeed, probably one of the very few things that connected Ireland to Bulgaria was a Celtic High Cross in Macedonia, reminding the passers-by of the sacrifices made by the 10th (Irish) division against the Bulgarians during the First World War.58

21In Germany, Ireland became all the talk in schools, be it in the Western Allied occupation zones or the Soviet-occupied zone. The mayor of a small town made this very clear to the IRCS:

  • 59 Mayor of Schramberg, Baden-Württemberg, to IRCS through ICRC, 17 April 1946, ICRC archives, O CMS C (...)

I have instructed teachers to ask their pupils to write something on the food they received and I put forward to send you the best works. Moreover, the teachers have been asked to pay particular attention to your country during geography lessons.59

  • 60 Junior Red Cross Newsletter, May 1948, archives of the International Federation of Red Cross and Re (...)
  • 61 Irish Red Cross Bulletin, November 1945, archives of the IFRC, box 16539.

22Archives in Dublin and the ICRC in Geneva contain beautiful drawings from Germany and elsewhere made by children, thanking Ireland and its people for the supplies and donations they received. The distribution of food and maps of Ireland on the wall of the classroom were frequently drawn themes. The junior section of the IRCS was involved in so-called “links”. The idea behind these links was to establish a connection between schools in Ireland and on the continent. For example, Rockwell College in Cashel was Link 26B and collected second-hand clothes and shoes for Stockerau Boys’ School in Vienna.60 Although it is not the object of the present article, Ireland welcomed about 1,100 foreign children from France, Germany, Austria, and Jewish children from Central Europe for what may be called recuperation stays. This happened widely in Western Europe where tens of thousands of needy children went abroad. In the words of Marie-Thérèse d’Harcourt of the French Red Cross who accompanied French children to Ireland, she wanted them “to learn to be children”.61

  • 62 “Society’s Aid for Children in Europe”, Irish Independent, 19 July 1946 (INA).
  • 63 “Things That Matter”, Limerick Leader, 6 May 1946 (INA).
  • 64 Deirdre McMahon, “John Charles McQuaid, Archbishop of Dublin, 1940-72”, in History of the Catholic (...)
  • 65 Johannes de Jong to John Charles McQuaid, 20 June 1945 and John Charles McQuaid to Johannes de Jong (...)
  • 66 For McQuaid’s efforts for Hungary, see DDA, XXX/3, XXX/7 and XVIII/relief.
  • 67 Joseph Fliesser to John Charles McQuaid, 10 April 1948, DDA, XV/E/25/1-7.

23Besides the International Red Cross, there were other important networks at work for international humanitarian aid. The Catholic Church was one of them and its operations were helped because the Church was transnational in nature. The St. Vincent de Paul Society decided to collect money to help its counterparts on the continent. By 19 July 1946, £5,700 (€243,000) had been collected.62 The diocese of Limerick contributed £5,100 (€217,000) to the Pope’s appeal in favour of distressed children that same year.63 But it was John Charles McQuaid, the Archbishop of Dublin, who played an important role in the organisation of relief. McQuaid had always been much involved in charity and social initiatives within his diocese.64 He was first approached by Johannes de Jong, the Archbishop of Utrecht in the Netherlands, who begged for help in a letter written in Latin. McQuaid reassured him that Ireland’s aid would soon be coming.65 But he was most involved in collecting clothes and other supplies for Hungary and supported Cardinal József Mindszenty in his struggle against the Stalinists in the rapidly unfolding Cold War in Europe.66 In 1948, McQuaid was also instrumental in delivering 30 tons of meat to the diocese of Linz in Austria.67

  • 68 Asher Benson, Jewish Dublin: Portraits of Life by the Liffey, Dublin, A. & A. Farmar, 2007, p. 22.
  • 69 Note written by Cornelius Cremin on meeting, 1 October 1946, NAI, DFA, 6/419/4C.
  • 70 Note written by Cornelius Cremin, 15 January 1947, NAI, DFA, 6/419/4C.
  • 71 “Dublin-Prepared Kosher Meat for European Jews”, The Irish Times, 4 September 1948; “Party Arrives (...)
  • 72 Dermot Keogh, Jews in Twentieth-Century Ireland…, p. 229-233.
  • 73 Jérôme aan de Wiel, Ireland’s Helping Hand to Europe, 1945-1950…, for Yugoslavia see p. 449-450 and (...)
  • 74 “Appeal to Relieve European Distress”, The Irish Times, 17 June 1946; “Help for Europe”, The Irish (...)
  • 75 “Irish News in Brief”, The Irish Times, 26 February 1946 (ITDA).
  • 76 Jérôme aan de Wiel, Ireland’s Helping Hand to Europe, 1945-1950…, see section on Albania, p. 414-41 (...)

24In the religious networks, there was also a Jewish connection. The only Jewish deputy in the Dáil, Robert Briscoe, was in touch with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Centre. In October 1946, Briscoe and Dr. Joseph Schwartz of the “Joint” as it was known met Cornelius Cremin of the Department of External Affairs in Dublin. Schwartz presented a letter of reference to Cremin from Rabbi Isaac Herzog, who had been the former Chief Rabbi of Ireland, sometimes known as the “Sinn Féin Rabbi” owing to his pro-nationalist opinions,68 and who was now in Palestine. Briscoe and Schwartz had come to discuss the sending of canned meat to orthodox Jews.69 The amount and the sending of the meat were not an issue, but finding the necessary tinplate to can the meat was. De Valera had an ecclesiastical contact in New York who might be of help.70 Eventually, after long delays, in September 1948, a group of eleven orthodox rabbis arrived in Dublin to supervise the slaughtering of the animals. Jewish butchers from Paris were already on the spot.71 900,000 pounds of kosher meat were sent to the continent soon afterwards. Today near Nazareth, there is a small forest planted in honour of de Valera in 1966.72 The surviving Jewish populations in Budapest and Yugoslavia got Irish supplies.73 But this did not make up for Ireland’s lack of generosity and empathy towards Jews before and during the war. The Irish Quaker community worked tirelessly in favour of humanitarianism notably by collecting clothes and distributing them on the continent in cooperation with the British Quakers.74 The Church of Ireland (Anglican) was equally involved in charity operations.75 It must also be stressed here in this religious context that no difference was made between Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and Muslims. Albania was nominally a Muslim country and its population received Irish supplies and so did North African Muslims in the Parisian region.76

  • 77 “Dáil Agrees to Allocate £1,750,000”, Irish Independent, 20 June 1946 (INA).
  • 78 Jérôme aan de Wiel, Ireland’s Helping Hand to Europe, 1945-1950…, p. 135-139.
  • 79 For a comprehensive study of the “Big Freeze” and its impact, see Kevin C. Kearns, Ireland’s Arctic (...)
  • 80 “Gift of Cattle to Europe”, 13 February 1947, Dáil Éireann, Dáil Éireann Debates, vol. 104, no. 7, (...)
  • 81 “‘Scandalous and Shameful Remark’ on Europe Relief”, The Irish Press, 4 March 1947 (INA).
  • 82 “Exporting What We Cannot Afford”, Irish Independent, 23 January 1947 (INA).
  • 83 Kevin C. Kearns, Ireland’s Arctic Siege…, p. 76, 109, 163, 164-165, 199, 206-207, 215 and 286-288.
  • 84 “Taoiseach Hits at Critics of Food Shipments”, The Irish Times, 20 March 1947 (ITDA).
  • 85 “Cause of Christ Summons Us to Action”, Donegal News, 22 February 1947 (INA); “Ireland’s Duty to Ea (...)

25In June 1946, the Dáil approved a second relief budget of £1,750,000 (€74,608,000). This time, 75% of Ireland’s relief supplies would be allocated to Central and Eastern Europe.77 Not all the available supplies had been shipped over to the continent or collected by the Continentals because of logistical difficulties (for example, it was found difficult to export cattle). There was therefore an unexpected balance of £1,552,000 and the approved £1,750,000 would once again make a total of about £3,000,000 worth of supplies.78 The focus on Central and Eastern Europe was understandable as Western Europe was recovering more rapidly than expected and would soon benefit from massive American financial aid through the Marshall Plan, which was rejected by Eastern Europe controlled by the Soviets. But, in January 1947, the so-called “Big Freeze” hit Ireland when temperatures dropped to -14 degrees. The country was buried under layers of snow for weeks. The suffering of the poorer social classes was plain to see.79 Some deputies and county councillors expressed strong opposition against the continuation of sending supplies to the continent. Among those was Deputy Oliver J. Flanagan,80 a notorious anti-Semite and xenophobe. During a meeting of the Westmeath County Council, a Mr. Clarke claimed that 500,000 tourists, who he described as “locusts”, were eating away Irish food.81 Clarke had just presented what would nowadays be called “alternative facts” as it is very hard to see how half a million tourists were currently in the country. The Irish Independent began to run a campaign based on the idea that charity begins at home, and that “the Government should not forget that its first duty is to the people of Ireland”.82 It is indeed true that the government appeared to be singularly inactive during the “Big Freeze”.83 However, de Valera would have none of it and brushed their arguments aside.84 Some Catholic bishops also denounced those who opposed relief for the continent.85 Eventually, the “Big Freeze” passed, and the subsequent summer turned into a golden harvest. The Irish government, people, charities, and Churches continued with their humanitarian efforts until 1950.

  • 86 Ermin E. Klaus to John D’Alton, 2 August 1946 and Ermin E. Klaus Klaus to John P. Shanley, 11 Octob (...)
  • 87 Joseph Walshe to Frederick Boland, 20 March 1947, NAI, DFA, 6/419/1/4.
  • 88 Frederick Boland to Joseph Walshe, 28 April 1947, NAI, DFA, 6/419/1/4.

26Relief and humanitarianism are not above high politics. Behind the scenes, Catholic circles were pressurising the Irish government and the IRCS to abandon their cooperation with the International Red Cross located in Geneva, the cradle of Calvinism.86 In a letter marked “secret”, Joseph Walshe, now Irish ambassador to the Holy See, informed Secretary for External Affairs Frederick Boland that the Pope had indirectly asked de Valera to think again about continuing to use the International Red Cross. He commented: “The Holy See is profoundly suspicious of the whole organisation and would much prefer that we had nothing to do with Geneva which for them is incurably anti-Catholic”.87 On 28 April 1947, the Department of External Affairs informed the ambassador that it was hoped that de Valera would agree to stop cooperating with the International Red Cross and switch to the NCWC, led by the American Catholic hierarchy.88 In the end, the government took the decision to cooperate with the NCWC, a welfare organisation tough on the emerging Communist governments in Central and Eastern Europe. Irish public opinion was deeply upset by the Communists’ attacks on the Catholic Church behind the Iron Curtain, notably the show trials of Cardinal József Mindszenty in Hungary and Archbishop Aloysius Stepinac in Yugoslavia, and was opposed to sending more supplies to Communist countries. However, unlike what was believed or claimed, there was no Communist manipulation of Irish supplies for political and electoral gains.

  • 89 “Starving People”, The Irish Times, 3 April 1946 (ITDA).

27To try to answer how many people Ireland saved is tempting. In April 1946, The Irish Times pertinently remarked: “Ireland’s surplus [of supplies] may be small enough, but it could mean the difference between life and death to a million people on the Continent”.89 It is impossible to answer this question with precision. But judging by the hundreds of thousands of letters of thanks the Irish authorities received, a million people’s lives might well have been saved. To put it this way, Irish woollen blankets might have made all the difference between life and death for a Polish family living in a dug-out in Warsaw with outside temperatures of -15 degrees. The same goes for Irish food in Bulgarian orphanages or Irish medicines in France. But more important than trying to ascertain how many lives were saved by Ireland is to state that Ireland brought hope to those who had lost everything. In January 1946, ICRC delegate Dr. August Lindt went to old people’s homes in Berlin to distribute Irish supplies:

  • 90 Report of Dr. August Lindt to JRC, Geneva, 9 February 1946, ICRC archives, O CMS C-023; JRC, “Donat (...)

As we entered, the old people were sitting and lying on their beds, apathetic. […] But, when the [Irish] socks were distributed, suddenly there was movement. It seemed incomprehensible to them that they suddenly were getting gifts. […] When we said goodbye, the atmosphere in the dormitory […] was totally changed. Groups had formed who enthusiastically discussed with each other. A sick person sat up and said [to us]: “Please, promise me to let the Irish people know how grateful we are to them”.90

28One would have thought that Irish relief and generosity would have naturally led to the development of strong relations between Ireland and continental countries during the post-war years, especially considering the important number of letters of thanks sent by leading political and religious personalities to Dublin. That was, however, not the case. Curiously – and owing to unconvincing financial arguments – the Irish government decided not to send representatives to supervise the distribution of Irish supplies on the continent, relying instead on a handful of IRCS members. Opportunities to develop relations through personal contacts were thus lost. But the Cold War made sure that no such relations occurred with Eastern Europe anyway, and it was not particularly better with Western Europe. Ireland refused to become a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) in 1949 and did not participate in the founding of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in 1951, nor in the founding of the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1957. It was a founding member-state of the Council of Europe in 1949, but the Council’s decisions were not legally-binding. Instead, Ireland chose to continue to rely economically on the United Kingdom and kept an isolationist and conservative mind-set that would only begin to change in the 1960s.

  • 91 Quoted in Jérôme aan de Wiel, “The Netherlands”, in Ireland through European Eyes…, p. 219-220.
  • 92 Ibid., p. 210.
  • 93 Quoted in Christophe Gillissen, “France”, in Ireland through European Eyes…, p. 75-127; for quote s (...)

29A case in point is bilateral relations with the Netherlands. The outstanding help offered by the Irish led to a brief period of rather close relations between the two countries. A simultaneous exhibition of Dutch painters in Dublin and Irish painters in Amsterdam was organised in 1949. Unsurprisingly, an Irish diplomat reported from Amsterdam: “there is a very great regard for and interest in Ireland amongst the Dutch”.91 The Dutch were very willing to offer advice to the Irish to increase their exports to the Netherlands, but it was in vain. While the Dutch volume of exports to Ireland increased and that the Netherlands became Ireland’s fourth most important import partner, the Irish volume of exports to the Netherlands decreased dramatically, from £1,396,000 in 1949 to £681,000 in 1954.92 The same could be said about France and Ireland from a political and economic point of view as has been established by Christophe Gillissen. During his famous visit to Ireland in 1969, Charles de Gaulle (of distant Irish ancestry) even said: “there has been, it seems, for some generations past a kind of screen between Ireland and France”. The general hoped that that time had now passed.93 Yet, an exception can be made regarding the IRCS which continued to work closely with the International Red Cross in Geneva. The IRCS, with the Irish government’s support, came to the rescue of Italy in 1951 and the Netherlands in 1953 after natural catastrophes occurred in these two countries. Again, generous amounts of money and supplies were donated by the authorities and the people, so soon after their post-war aid.

 

  • 94 Bernd Haunfelder, Schweizer Hilfe für Deutschland, 1917-1933 und 1944-1957, Münster, Aschendorff, 2 (...)

30But post-war Irish humanitarian achievements were forgotten. The letters of thanks from children in Tirana, surviving Jewish leaders in Budapest or Red Cross officials in Sofia went up in smoke or were laid to rest in dusty archive boxes. Today, in St. Stephen’s Green in central Dublin, a statue called “The Three Fates”, offered by West Germany to Ireland in 1956, reminds the passers-by of the country’s post-war help to Germany. But it concerns the welcoming of about 500 German children in Ireland, not the Irish aid sent to Germany. It is not known if there are monuments in Ireland or the continent, commemorating Irish post-war aid – in any case, there cannot be that many otherwise it would have been known. Ireland’s post-war aid was not specifically about building bridges with the continent but nevertheless constituted a great gesture of European and Christian solidarity and human compassion, one that must now definitely be recorded in the annals of European post-war history. Ireland’s contribution was like Switzerland’s, a “nationale Aufgabe” (national task) between nation and state. And like Switzerland’s aid, it became rapidly forgotten after the war, overshadowed by the United States’ massive aid.94 It did not make it less important though. As The Irish Press rightly argued in July 1945:

  • 95 “Famine”, The Irish Press, 31 July 1945 (INA).

There is no doubt that at the present moment, and from various causes, there are Irish families in poor circumstances. There is also no doubt that a third of the entire revenues of this State are spent on social services […] It is given as a right in the form of children’s allowances, widows’ pensions, old age pensions, food vouchers, free milk […] But the destitute in Europe have none to aid them on this scale […] From one end of Europe to the other there are conditions of dire want. What Ireland can do with the gift of three million pounds worth is only a trifle, but to the comparatively few it can reach among the millions in need it may make the difference between life and death. In view of the difference between the European picture and our own, to-day, three million pounds worth of supplies seems, indeed, a very small thank-offering.95

31Today, very few in Ireland and elsewhere in Europe know what the country did for peoples in dire need between 1945 and 1950. Irish humanitarian aid was a chronicle to be written as de Valera had said in Paris in 1947, but somehow it never entered historiography until very recently. It was Ireland’s forgotten helping hand.

Haut de page

Notes

1 Jérôme aan de Wiel, Ireland’s Helping Hand to Europe, 1945-1950: Combatting Hunger from Normandy to Tirana, Budapest, Central European University Press, 2021.

2 Ireland through European Eyes: Western Europe, the EEC and Ireland, 1945-1973, Mervyn O’Driscoll, Dermot Keogh, Jérôme aan de Wiel (eds.), Cork, Cork University Press, 2013, p. 24-26, 82, 206-209 and 261-262.

3 “Ireland’s Gift for Relief of Europe’s Needy”, Irish Independent, 27 July 1950, online (subscription) on Irish Newspaper Archives, hereafter referred to as INA: https://www.irishnewsarchive.com/about-us.

4 “French War Victims Thank Eire”, Irish Independent, 25 September 1947 (INA); “France Says ‘Thanks’”, The Irish Press, 25 September 1947 (INA).

5 Dermot Keogh, Ireland and Europe, 1919-1948, Dublin, Gill and Macmillan, 1988, p. 1-2.

6 Joseph Lee in Mervyn O’Driscoll, Ireland, Germany and the Nazis: Politics and Diplomacy, 1919-1939, Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2004, comment on back cover.

7 Mervyn O’Driscoll, “‘We are trying to do our share’: The Construction of Positive Neutrality and Irish Post-War Relief to Europe”, Irish Studies in International Affairs, vol. 27, 2016, p. 37.

8 Jessica Reinisch, “Introduction. Relief in the Aftermath of War”, Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 43, no. 3, July 2008, p. 372.

9 William I. Hitchcock, Liberation: The Bitter Road to Freedom, Europe, 1944-1945, London, Faber and Faber, 2009, p. 21.

10 Ian Kershaw, The End: Germany, 1944-45, London, Penguin Books, 2012, p. 181.

11 Jérôme aan de Wiel, Ireland’s Helping Hand to Europe, 1945-1950…, p. 11.

12 See the report entitled “Convoyeurbericht von Dr. A. Vaudaux über den 1. Blockzug der CMS zur Versorgung von Gross-Berlin (Januar / Februar 1946)”, February 1946, ICRC archives, Geneva, O CMS D-015.

13 Joint Relief Commission of the International Red Cross (JRC), “Donation of the Irish Government to the Civilian Populations of Central and Eastern Europe; Final Report on the Distribution of the Donation 1945”, National Archives of Ireland (NAI), Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), 6/419/4/1.

14 International Centre for Relief to Civilian Populations, “Irish Gift 1946, Report No. VII, Hungary”, Geneva, June 1948, NAI, DFA, 6/419/1/9.

15 Report by Hungarian Ministry of Welfare, Department VI/3, undated but very likely 1946, Budapest City Archive, HU-BFL-IV-1409-C-1947-IX-11549. The author is most grateful to Dr. Szilvia Lengl’s (Berlin) translation.

16 Catherine Rey-Schyrr, Histoire du Comité international de la Croix-Rouge, vol. III, 1945-1955: de Yalta à Dien Bien Phu, Geneva, Georg, 2007, p. 135-136.

17 Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin, London, Vintage Books, 2011, p. 287-292, 253, 274-275 and 276.

18 Tony Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945, London, Vintage Books, 2010, p. 20-21.

19 Ibid., p. 82.

20 Keith Lowe, Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II, London, Penguin Books, 2013, p. 6-8.

21 William I. Hitchcock, Liberation…, p. 126-127 and 183-189.

22 Tony Judt, Postwar…, p. 82-83, 84-85 and 86.

23 Ben Shephard, The Long Road Home: The Aftermath of the Second World War, London, The Bodley Head, 2010, p. 22-23.

24 Jérôme aan de Wiel, Ireland’s Helping Hand to Europe, 1945-1950…, p. 105-108 and 295-301.

25 Quoted in Keith Lowe, Savage Continent…, p. xiv.

26 Richard Doherty, Irish Men and Women in the Second World War, Dublin, Four Courts Press, 1999, p. 22-26. Regarding Ireland’s bogus neutrality, see for example T. Ryle Dwyer, Behind the Green Curtain: Ireland’s Phoney Neutrality during World War II, Dublin, Gill and Macmillan, 2009.

27 Jérôme aan de Wiel, Ireland’s Helping Hand to Europe, 1945-1950…, p. 28-35.

28 Quoted in David McCullagh, De Valera, vol. II, Rule 1932-1975, Dublin, Gill and Macmillan, 2018, p. 259-260.

29 Jérôme aan de Wiel, Ireland’s Helping Hand to Europe, 1945-1950…, p. 61 and 425 ; Shane Lehane, A History of the Irish Red Cross, Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2019, p. 279-280.

30 Mervyn O’Driscoll, “We are trying to do our share’…”, p. 24-25.

31 Memorandum, Department of Finance, 25 April 1945, NAI, DFA, 6/419/4.

32 Arthur Griffith to Hugh Law, 10 April 1922, NAI DE 2/269, Documents on Irish Foreign Policy, document no. 274, online: http://www.difp.ie/docs/Volume1/1922/274.htm.

33 Kevin O’Sullivan, “‘Ah, Ireland, the caring nation’: Foreign Aid and Irish State Identity in the Long 1970s”, Irish Historical Studies, vol. 38, no. 151, May 2013, p. 481.

34 A. V. Miroshnikov, Tri veka Irlandii, vol. II, 1845-1900, Voronezh, Istoki, 2014, p. 10; Rudolf Agstner, “Consular and Diplomatic Relations between Ireland and Austria(-Hungary)”, Favorita Papers, Special Edition: Austro-Irish Links through the Centuries, 2002, p. 59; Joseph Walshe to Count Gerald O’Kelly de Gallagh (Paris), 28 October 1929, NAI, DFA, EA 231/5, Documents on Irish Foreign Policy, document no. 295, online: http://www.difp.ie/docs/Volume3/1929/1005.htm.

35 Dáil Éireann, “Committee on Finance. Statement by the Taoiseach: Distress in Europe”, Dáil Éireann Debates, vol. 97, no. 7, 18 May 1945, online: https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/1945-05-18/6.

36 Ibid., mentioned in Jérôme aan de Wiel, Ireland’s Helping Hand to Europe, 1945-1950…, p. 78.

37 Eire, 1946-47: Estimates for Public Services for the Year Ending 31st March, 1947, Dublin, Stationery Office, March 1946, p. x-xiii. The £3,000,000 for relief are mentioned in this volume, not in the one preceding it, Eire, 1945-46: Estimates for Public Services for the year ending 31st March, 1946, Dublin, Stationery Office, March 1945, p. x-xiii.

38 Quoted in Dermot Keogh, Jews in Twentieth-Century Ireland: Refugees, Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, Cork, Cork University Press, 1998, p. 109.

39 Bernadette Whelan, “Integration or Isolation? Ireland and the Invitation to Join the Marshall Plan”, in Irish Foreign Policy 1919-1966: From Independence to Internationalism, Michael Kennedy, Joseph Morrison Skelly (eds.), Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2000, p. 210.

40 “Society’s Aid for Children of Europe”, Irish Independent, 19 July 1946 (INA).

41 Dáil Éireann, “Committee on Finance. Statement by the Taoiseach: Distress in Europe”.

42 Jérôme aan de Wiel, Ireland’s Helping Hand to Europe, 1945-1950…, p. 78.

43 “L’Irlande veut secourir ‘l’Allemagne malheureuse’”, Libres, 19 October 1945, NAI, DFA, 414/7.

44 “Ook Ierland zendt hulp naar Europa”, Katinpers, 20 May 1945, online on Delpher.

45 “Sinterklaas komt ditmaal uit Ierland”, Nieuwe Leidsche Courant, 5 October 1945, online on leiden.courant.nu; photograph of Irish cows, front page, Het Vrije Volk, 10 October 1945, online on Delpher; “Prachtig geschenk van Ierland”, Provinciale Zeeuwsche Courant, 10 October 1945.

46 Patrick Donaldson to probably the Department of External Affairs, 10 October 1945, NAI, DFA, 6/419/4/6.

47 “Hier is Nederland”, Limburgsch Dagblad, 29 October 1945, online on Delpher.

48 Phyllis Gaffney, “A Hospital for the Ruins: The Irish Hospital at Saint-Lô”, in Southern Ireland and the Liberation of France: New Perspectives, Gerald Morgan, Gavin Hughes (eds.), Bern, P. Lang, 2011, p. 103-120; Phyllis Gaffney, “Why Was Ireland Given Special Treatment? The Awkward State of Franco-Irish Diplomatic Relations, August 1944-March 1945”, Études irlandaises, nº 24-1, 1999, p. 151-162, online: https://www.persee.fr/doc/irlan_0183-973x_1999_num_24_1_1489; these two studies have been used here unless otherwise stated. See also Phyllis Gaffney, Healing amid the Ruins: The Hôpital irlandais, Saint-Lô (1945-46), Dublin, A. & A. Farmar, 1999.

49 William I. Hitchcock, Liberation…, p. 21-21 and 40-41.

50 Phyllis Gaffney, “A Hospital for the Ruins…”, p. 104.

51 Phyllis Gaffney, “Why Was Ireland Given Special Treatment?…”, p. 159 (my translation).

52 “Work at Saint-Lô Ends; Irish Hospital Staff for Warsaw”, Irish Independent, 11 January 1947 (INA).

53 Phyllis Gaffney, “A Hospital for the Ruins…”, p. 110.

54les joyeux pionniers de médecins sans frontières” (livre d’or (visitors’ book) of the town of Saint-Lô, entry of Marie-Anne Théot, archives of IRCS; my translation).

55 Jérôme aan de Wiel, Ireland’s Helping Hand to Europe, 1945-1950…, p. 416.

56Il faut aider l’Albanie qui a déjà tant souffert” (ibid.).

57 Georges Sotiroff, “Impressions from the Distribution of the Irish Supplies in the Balkans”, received in the Department of External Affairs, 16 November 1946, NAI, DFA, 6/419/1/8.

58 Keith Jeffery, Ireland and the Great War, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000, p. 59-60.

59 Mayor of Schramberg, Baden-Württemberg, to IRCS through ICRC, 17 April 1946, ICRC archives, O CMS C-020.

60 Junior Red Cross Newsletter, May 1948, archives of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), box 16539.

61 Irish Red Cross Bulletin, November 1945, archives of the IFRC, box 16539.

62 “Society’s Aid for Children in Europe”, Irish Independent, 19 July 1946 (INA).

63 “Things That Matter”, Limerick Leader, 6 May 1946 (INA).

64 Deirdre McMahon, “John Charles McQuaid, Archbishop of Dublin, 1940-72”, in History of the Catholic Diocese of Dublin, James Kelly, Dáire Keogh (eds.), Dublin, Four Courts Press, 2000, p. 353.

65 Johannes de Jong to John Charles McQuaid, 20 June 1945 and John Charles McQuaid to Johannes de Jong, 14 August 1945, Dublin Diocesan Archives (DDA), XV/E/31/1-7.

66 For McQuaid’s efforts for Hungary, see DDA, XXX/3, XXX/7 and XVIII/relief.

67 Joseph Fliesser to John Charles McQuaid, 10 April 1948, DDA, XV/E/25/1-7.

68 Asher Benson, Jewish Dublin: Portraits of Life by the Liffey, Dublin, A. & A. Farmar, 2007, p. 22.

69 Note written by Cornelius Cremin on meeting, 1 October 1946, NAI, DFA, 6/419/4C.

70 Note written by Cornelius Cremin, 15 January 1947, NAI, DFA, 6/419/4C.

71 “Dublin-Prepared Kosher Meat for European Jews”, The Irish Times, 4 September 1948; “Party Arrives to Prepare Meat for Europe”, The Irish Times, 7 September 1948; “Meat for Europe”, The Irish Times, 9 September 1948, online (subscription) on Irish Times Digital Archive, hereafter referred to as ITDA: www.irishtimes.com/archive.

72 Dermot Keogh, Jews in Twentieth-Century Ireland…, p. 229-233.

73 Jérôme aan de Wiel, Ireland’s Helping Hand to Europe, 1945-1950…, for Yugoslavia see p. 449-450 and for Budapest see p. 381-382 and list of some 542 groups that received Irish sugar in the city, p. 383.

74 “Appeal to Relieve European Distress”, The Irish Times, 17 June 1946; “Help for Europe”, The Irish Times, 8 November 1945 (ITDA).

75 “Irish News in Brief”, The Irish Times, 26 February 1946 (ITDA).

76 Jérôme aan de Wiel, Ireland’s Helping Hand to Europe, 1945-1950…, see section on Albania, p. 414-418 and North Africans in Parisian region, p. 473.

77 “Dáil Agrees to Allocate £1,750,000”, Irish Independent, 20 June 1946 (INA).

78 Jérôme aan de Wiel, Ireland’s Helping Hand to Europe, 1945-1950…, p. 135-139.

79 For a comprehensive study of the “Big Freeze” and its impact, see Kevin C. Kearns, Ireland’s Arctic Siege: The Big Freeze of 1947, Dublin, Gill and Macmillan, 2012.

80 “Gift of Cattle to Europe”, 13 February 1947, Dáil Éireann, Dáil Éireann Debates, vol. 104, no. 7, online: https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/1947-02-13/18.

81 “‘Scandalous and Shameful Remark’ on Europe Relief”, The Irish Press, 4 March 1947 (INA).

82 “Exporting What We Cannot Afford”, Irish Independent, 23 January 1947 (INA).

83 Kevin C. Kearns, Ireland’s Arctic Siege…, p. 76, 109, 163, 164-165, 199, 206-207, 215 and 286-288.

84 “Taoiseach Hits at Critics of Food Shipments”, The Irish Times, 20 March 1947 (ITDA).

85 “Cause of Christ Summons Us to Action”, Donegal News, 22 February 1947 (INA); “Ireland’s Duty to Ease Distress Abroad”, Connacht Tribune, 1 March 1947 (INA).

86 Ermin E. Klaus to John D’Alton, 2 August 1946 and Ermin E. Klaus Klaus to John P. Shanley, 11 October 1946, IRCS, unreferenced grey box; Frederick Boland to Joseph Walshe, 2 December 1946, NAI, DFA, 6/419/4C, embassy series, Holy See, 24/74.

87 Joseph Walshe to Frederick Boland, 20 March 1947, NAI, DFA, 6/419/1/4.

88 Frederick Boland to Joseph Walshe, 28 April 1947, NAI, DFA, 6/419/1/4.

89 “Starving People”, The Irish Times, 3 April 1946 (ITDA).

90 Report of Dr. August Lindt to JRC, Geneva, 9 February 1946, ICRC archives, O CMS C-023; JRC, “Donation of the Irish Government to the Civilian Populations of Central and Eastern Europe; Preliminary Report on the First Consignment Sent to Berlin”, undated but probably 1946, NAI, DFA, 6/419/4/22.

91 Quoted in Jérôme aan de Wiel, “The Netherlands”, in Ireland through European Eyes…, p. 219-220.

92 Ibid., p. 210.

93 Quoted in Christophe Gillissen, “France”, in Ireland through European Eyes…, p. 75-127; for quote see p. 119. See also Jérôme aan de Wiel, “The Long Rupture, 1870-1970: The Darker Side of Franco-Irish Relations”, The International History Review, vol. 37, no. 2, April 2015, p. 201-218.

94 Bernd Haunfelder, Schweizer Hilfe für Deutschland, 1917-1933 und 1944-1957, Münster, Aschendorff, 2010, p. 11 and 14-15.

95 “Famine”, The Irish Press, 31 July 1945 (INA).

Haut de page

Pour citer cet article

Référence papier

Jérôme aan de Wiel, « Ireland’s Humanitarian Efforts in Post-War Europe, 1945-1950: The Forgotten Irish Helping Hand »Études irlandaises, 48-2 | 2023, 7-22.

Référence électronique

Jérôme aan de Wiel, « Ireland’s Humanitarian Efforts in Post-War Europe, 1945-1950: The Forgotten Irish Helping Hand »Études irlandaises [En ligne], 48-2 | 2023, mis en ligne le 06 novembre 2023, consulté le 07 novembre 2024. URL : http://0-journals-openedition-org.catalogue.libraries.london.ac.uk/etudesirlandaises/17199 ; DOI : https://0-doi-org.catalogue.libraries.london.ac.uk/10.4000/etudesirlandaises.17199

Haut de page

Auteur

Jérôme aan de Wiel

University College Cork

Jérôme aan de Wiel est maître de conférences en histoire et études européennes à l’université de Cork (UCC). Il a publié The Catholic Church in Ireland, 1914-1918 : War and Politics (Dublin, Irish Academic Press, 2003) ; The Irish Factor, 1899-1919 : Ireland’s Strategic and Diplomatic Importance for Foreign Powers (Dublin, Irish Academic Press, 2008) ; East German Inteligence and Ireland, 1949-90 : Espionage, Terrorism and Diplomacy (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2015) ; et Ireland’s Helping Hand to Europe, 1945-1950 : Combatting Hunger from Normandy to Tirana (Budapest, Central European University Press, 2021). Il a coédité, avec Mervyn O’Driscoll et Dermot Keogh, Ireland through European Eyes : Western Europe, the EEC and Ireland, 1945-1973 (Cork, Cork University Press, 2013). Il prépare actuellement un manuscrit sur les enfants étrangers invités en Irlande après la Seconde Guerre mondiale.

Jérôme aan de Wiel lectures in history and European studies in University College Cork (UCC). He published The Catholic Church in Ireland, 1914-1918: War and Politics (Dublin, Irish Academic Press, 2003); The Irish Factor, 1899-1919: Ireland’s Strategic and Diplomatic Importance for Foreign Powers (Dublin, Irish Academic Press, 2008); East German Intelligence and Ireland, 1949-90: Espionage, Terrorism and Diplomacy (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2015); and Ireland’s Helping Hand to Europe, 1945-1950: Combatting Hunger from Normandy to Tirana (Budapest, Central European University Press, 2021). He co-edited, with Mervyn O’Driscoll and Dermot Keogh, Ireland through European Eyes: Western Europe, the EEC and Ireland, 1945-1973 (Cork, Cork University Press, 2013). He is currently writing a manuscript on foreign children invited to Ireland after the Second World War.

Haut de page

Droits d’auteur

CC-BY-4.0

Le texte seul est utilisable sous licence CC BY 4.0. Les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés) sont « Tous droits réservés », sauf mention contraire.

Haut de page
Rechercher dans OpenEdition Search

Vous allez être redirigé vers OpenEdition Search