The fight for Irish neutrality

By Diana O’Dwyer

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, governments in Ireland and across the EU have used the war to justify massive increases in military spending and renewed attacks on neutrality. EU military spending jumped 30%[1] between 2021 and 2024. Even larger increases are planned for the coming years. Already, Finland and Sweden have abandoned their longstanding policy of neutrality and joined NATO, leaving Ireland, Austria and Malta as the only remaining neutral EU states. 

“EU military spending jumped 30%[1] between 2021 and 2024.”

Last year, the Irish government announced that it would “reform” the Triple Lock, which obliges overseas deployments of more than 12 troops to be approved by the UN, the government and the Dáil.[2] In reality, this would be abolition, not reform. The government wants total discretion in relation to military deployments so it can offer full-spectrum support to EU and US imperialism. 

In January, a widely publicised[3] Department of Defence briefing argued that other EU states will have a “lower tolerance” for Irish neutrality because of “the changing geopolitical climate, the accession of the previously militarily neutral states of Finland and Sweden into NATO, and the resulting increased focus on defence industry and wider defence matters.” 

Now that Trump has started his trade war, we can expect additional arguments that Ireland must curry favour with the EU in order to persuade them not to retaliate against US multinationals based in Ireland. For the government and its media supporters, that means a full frontal assault on neutrality, including abolishing the Triple Lock, increasing military spending and participating in military alliances with NATO members, like the maritime surveillance alliance that the government joined in April.[4]  

Abolishing the Triple Lock will be the most important of these blows - if the government succeeds. The Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, previously said that the Triple Lock is at the “core of our neutrality”[5] - which is precisely why he wants to get rid of it. The threat to Irish neutrality is existential and urgent: legislation to abolish the Triple Lock is promised before the end of July. 

History of Irish neutrality 

Since 1922, the South of Ireland has formally been a neutral state. A direct result of its status as a former British colony, the same approach was adopted by many other post-colonial states, such as India and Malta, and at various times by smaller states with great power neighbours, including Switzerland, Austria, Ukraine, Costa Rica and Mexico. In Ireland’s case, the pursuit of neutrality pre-dated independence. The Irish Neutrality League had been established in 1914 to oppose Irish involvement in World War I and succeeded in defeating conscription, which proved to be a key turning point in the struggle for Irish independence. Under the leadership of revolutionary socialist, James Connolly, its slogan “We serve neither King nor Kaiser, but Ireland” encapsulated this anti-imperialist version of neutrality. 

The legacy of this tradition could be seen in Ireland’s neutrality during World War II, its support for the UN and for UN peacekeeping afterwards, and its refusal to join NATO in 1949 because Britain was a member. However, the Irish government’s simultaneous offer for a separate military alliance with the US revealed how any remaining “anti-imperialism” was limited to Britain, whose occupation of the North remained a major political issue. 

Over time, neutrality came to be seen as a post-colonial hangover that the ruling elite was anxious to be rid of. Ireland’s entry into the EU in 1973 was an important milestone in this developing elite project to cast off our colonial past. Rather than opposing aspects of Western imperialism, the goal was to cement Ireland’s growing role as a player in it. 

“Unfortunately for successive governments, at every stage Irish public opinion has been firmly in favour of maintaining neutrality.”

Unfortunately for successive governments, at every stage Irish public opinion has been firmly in favour of maintaining neutrality. Dr. Karen Devine has shown how in nineteen opinion polls from 1981 to 2023, four out of five people supported neutrality compared to only 13-15 per cent that rejected neutrality or supported joining NATO. 

The strength of public support for neutrality has prompted successive governments to resort to denial and subterfuge to undermine it. For instance, claiming that allowing US troops to use Shannon airport effectively as a overseas military base does not infringe on neutrality; turning a blind eye to major airlines like Lufthansa illegally transiting munitions through Irish airspace for use in Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians; participating in high-level talks at NATO headquarters; and sending so-called “non-miltary aid” to Ukraine, including body armour and rifle training. 

To ensure various EU integration treaties would pass referendums, governments have also lodged disingenuous national declarations alongside them, insisting they would have no effect on neutrality. The most relevant of these is Ireland’s national declaration to the Nice Treaty in 2002[6], which enshrined the Triple Lock in international law and was crucial to the Treaty passing a referendum on the second try. Unlike the Treaty itself, however, this declaration can be unilaterally withdrawn by the state at any time, which the government is clearly planning to do once it passes national legislation to abolish the Triple Lock. Seven years later, a similar trick was used to ensure the passage of the second Lisbon Treaty referendum. This time round, all EU member states signed a legally toothless but superficially convincing “Protocol on the concerns of the Irish people on the Treaty of Lisbon”, which stated that the Treaty “does not affect or prejudice Ireland’s traditional policy of military neutrality”. 

Probably a more decisive factor in the Yes vote to Lisbon II was that it took place after the 2008 economic crash. The government’s main argument was that we couldn’t afford to annoy our European overlords in Germany, France and Britain at a time when we were borrowing money off them. Similar tropes will play out in the campaign to abolish the Triple Lock, with the government stoking up fears about the impact of tariffs on Ireland’s economy and various pro-NATO commentators moaning that we are seen as a “free rider” on defence in the EU and need to start “paying our way”. 

Defending neutrality now 

Labour leader Delia Larkin signing the anti-conscription pledge.

The centrality of neutrality in the debates on successive EU referenda and the consistent public support for it demonstrate how neutrality has remained a thorn in the side of the Irish establishment. Dr. Karen Devine’s research also shows a coherent public understanding of neutrality that includes: “Not join a European army/not go to war if the EU does”; “Peacekeeping only. No other military commitment”; “Not part of [EU] defence/military alliance”; “No NATO involvement/not in NATO”. 

This meaningful understanding of neutrality contrasts with the continual attempts of elites to redefine it out of existence. The latest stage of this is to pretend that neutrality has only ever meant military non-alignment in the sense of formal non-membership of a military alliance. Hence, the Triple Lock, far from being the “core” of Irish neutrality, becomes magically irrelevant to it. And unless we officially join NATO, we remain “militarily neutral”. It doesn’t matter how many hundreds of thousands of US troops pass through Shannon on their way to Iraq or Afghanistan, how many enemy combatants are renditioned, or how many tonnes of munitions use Irish airspace on their way to murder civilians in Gaza, all that is irrelevant to the government’s “military neutrality”. 

The left and the wider public must reject this out of hand. For us, neutrality is not this anaemic concoction put forward by elites. It is an historical gain of the Irish working class that played a vital role in winning independence for the 26 counties from the British Empire, that has kept us out of imperialist wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, that has enabled the Palestinian solidarity movement here to force the state into the “least bad” position on Gaza in the EU, and that has minimised wasteful military expenditure. Similar to other historical gains of the working class, neutrality once lost will be almost impossible to regain without a socialist revolution. That is why it is so crucial to defend it now while we still have the chance. 

Abolishing the Triple Lock is a long-standing position for Fine Gael, which in 2005 published a policy document, “Beyond Neutrality”, that proposed getting rid of it. Fianna Fáil has until recently been more sensitive to public opinion and pretended to favour retaining it. But since Russia invaded Ukraine, it has seen a crack in the door and is forcing it open, using imaginary threats to Ireland as a lever. 

The government’s two main arguments at the moment are to say that the Triple Lock gives Russia a veto over Irish foreign policy through its permanent membership of the UN Security Council and that Russia poses a threat to Ireland, via potential invasion of other EU countries as well as potential attacks on infrastructure near Ireland - in particular subsea cables in Irish waters and international waters near Ireland. 

The absurdity of the first argument is plain, considering that Britain, which, rather than posing some imaginary threat, continues to occupy the North and, over the years, has colluded in terrorist attacks on the South, also has a Security Council veto. Yet the state has never characterised UN approval for military interventions as a “British veto” over Irish foreign policy. The second only has any credence because of a prolonged campaign of scaremongering based on claiming that, because Russia invaded Ukraine, it also wants to invade the Baltic states and much of Eastern Europe and that it can only be stopped by massive European rearmament. There is no credible evidence for this, but even if there were, it should not have any bearing on a small neutral country thousands of miles away. The government knows this, so it has resorted to fabricating imaginary Russian naval threats to subsea cables and gas pipelines, only a minuscule proportion of which are in Irish waters. The government’s stated reasons for abolishing the Triple Lock may be nonsense. But what will likely be more effective in convincing people to get out on the streets and fight to defend it is to explain the very real benefits of our neutrality. 

First, it has kept us out of imperialist wars and saved the lives of generations of young working-class Irish men and women, who would otherwise have died alongside British soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Related to this, it has protected us from attack because we are not seen as a central part of Western imperialism. Unlike many other European countries, Ireland has never been subjected to a terrorist attack by Islamic extremists, or indeed by anyone other than loyalists or the British state. In an era of growing inter-imperialist conflict, the more Ireland becomes militarily integrated into the Western bloc, the more we are putting ourselves at risk of being dragged into wars, subjected to terrorist attacks, or having important infrastructure sabotaged. 

“Neutrality has therefore played an important role in reducing Ireland’s complicity in the genocide...”

Second, the fact that we are neutral has enabled the Palestine solidarity movement to pressure the government into adopting more progressive positions on Gaza than if we were militarily allied with the US and Germany, who are the main backers of Israel’s genocide, both politically and militarily. Neutrality has therefore played an important role in reducing Ireland’s complicity in the genocide, amplifying calls for a ceasefire and humanitarian aid, and even in somewhat restraining Israel’s actions in Lebanon through the presence of Irish UN peacekeepers. If we want to maintain the possibility of pressuring future governments into somewhat independent foreign policy or peacemaking in the future, then maintaining neutrality is crucial.  

Third, because we are neutral, we have been able to minimise wasteful military expenditure. 

In 2023, Ireland had the lowest rate of military expenditure in the EU at 0.2% of GDP. Malta (0.4% of GDP), and Austria (both 0.6% of GDP), also neutral states, were the next lowest. This gives the lie to widespread claims that Ireland is alone in the EU in not prioritising military expenditure. It is also not true that being neutral necessitates high levels of military spending because a state without military allies must defend itself. This argument is often made with reference to Switzerland, without acknowledging that Swiss military expenditure, at 0.7% of GDP, is not all that much higher than Ireland’s, especially if compared to GNI - a better measure than GDP for Ireland that strips out profit shifting by multinationals. Beyond Europe, other neutral countries, such as Mexico (also 0.7% of GDP), also have low military expenditure, or, in Costa Rica’s case, have abolished the military altogether. 

Such total demilitarisation is the direction Ireland should be going, rather than targeting huge increases in military expenditure to bring us up to the NATO “interoperability” standard of 2% of GDP. Based on our current spending of 0.2% of GDP, this would mean a tenfold increase in military spending - a massive expense with massive opportunity costs at a time when multiple crises in housing, health, and climate urgently need to be addressed, and we are facing a trade war and a looming global recession. 

This points to a potential fault line in the emerging movement to defend Irish neutrality. Sinn Féin, the Social Democrats, and Labour have all expressed support for defending the Triple Lock and for the re-launched Irish Neutrality League, but People Before Profit is the only major opposition party that does not support increased military spending as well. Increasing military spending only makes sense in the context of increasing Ireland’s contribution to a wider military alliance. It is intrinsically linked to abandoning neutrality, not to strengthening it. 

Neutrality has been and will continue to be our best and our only defence against great power imperialism. It was won historically through mass mobilisation against conscription and war and must be defended now in the same way. 

Notes

[1] EU. “Informal EU Leaders’ Retreat.” Consilium, February 2025, https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/meetings/european-council/2025/02/03/

[2] The Defence (Amendment) Act 2006 is the current legal basis for the Triple Lock.  https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2006/act/20/enacted/en/print.html.  

[3] Malone, Emmet. “Tolerance for Ireland’s Neutrality May Go down as Finland and Sweden Joined Nato, Minister Told.” The Irish Times, January 28, 2025, https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2025/01/28/entry-of-finland-and-sweden-into-nato-will-reduce-tolerance-for-irelands-neutrality/; 

[4] Walsh, Andrew. “Irish Military to Join EU Naval Intelligence Alliance amid Growing Security Concerns.” TheJournal.ie, April 14, 2025. 

[5] Micheál Martin, “Pre-European Council Meeting: Statements: 18 December 2013: Dáil Debates,”  December 18, 2013. 

[6] Ireland. National Declaration by Ireland at the Seville European Council (21 June 2002).