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Matthew Kelly
- The Emergency: Neutral Ireland 1939-45 by Brian Girvin Buy this book
The debate over Ireland’s decision to maintain neutrality during the Second World War periodically resurfaces in the letters page of the Irish Times, exposing the cracks in established political pieties. The challenge tends to come from those resistant to the idea that the political circumstances of the time made neutrality the most rational policy. The desire to atone for the failings of an earlier generation sees historical analysis driven by contemporary moral certainties. Something of this sort animates Brian Girvin’s study of the diplomacy between the Allies and Ireland, Girvin’s late father having been pro-German, as he reveals in an early footnote.
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Matthew Kelly lectures in history at the University of Southampton. His first book, The Fenian Ideal and Irish Nationalism 1882-1916, came out this year.
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