Ireland, Africa and the end of empire

Studies of international history and African affairs rarely consider the case of Ireland. Admittedly this is a small country with a minor impact on the continent. Approached another way, however, Ireland has had a significant diplomatic role in relation to Africa at the United Nations and Africa has, in turn, been most important for the modernization of Irish politics. These two dimensions are at the core of Kevin O'Sullivan's book. He investigates, on the one hand, how Africa became an important field of Irish diplomatic action in the late 1950s and, on the other hand, how Ireland's involvement with Africa has led to a renewal of Irish identity and politics in the 1960s and 1970s. The volume covers three decades, from 1955 when Ireland joined the United Nations to 1975 when the country, for the first time, occupied the presidency of the European Community. O'Sullivan's general aim is to explain how Ireland emerged from isolation at the margin of Europe at the end of the Second World War to a modern nation state in the 1960s, deploying an independent and dynamic presence at the United Nations and later within the European Community. He presents his analysis and findings in eight thematic chapters. In the first he looks at Irish foreign policy in relation to decolonization in the early 1960s, when Ireland joined the Western group of ‘fire brigade’ states. In the second chapter he analyses Ireland's policy and first peace mission abroad during the Congo crisis. The third chapter centres on apartheid, an issue which crystallized Ireland's foreign policy and led to the emergence of public protest in Ireland. The fourth chapter is about the secession of Biafra from Nigeria and the challenges it posed to Irish policy. The fifth chapter discusses the emergence of a new Irish NGO system, and how the latter put pressure on the Irish state in relation to Biafra. The sixth chapter returns to the apartheid story to consider the rise of popular protest in Ireland against white minority rule in Southern Africa. The last chapter analyses the rise of the Irish state's aid and development cooperation, and its concomitant growing involvement in the European community.

Economic history · Foreign policy · International relations · Irish · Modernization theory · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Presidency · Sociology · State (computer science) · African history and culture studies · Cambodian History and Society · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · History · Law