While the final outcome of yesterday’s general election is yet to emerge, one winner has already been confirmed.
In domestic policy the three main parties argued over who could spend the most, but on foreign policy there was unanimous silence.
In the entire election campaign, no-one mentioned the n-word: neutrality.
Before the election, the Dublin government announced its intention of no longer seeking UN approval before Ireland can engage in war.
That decision would now rest solely in Dublin, overseen by Brussels. Surprisingly, none of the opposition parties made that an election issue.
Meanwhile, the US continues to use Shannon airport as a refuelling stop for planes carrying army personnel and, for all we know, equipment to Israel and Ukraine.
That suggests that Ireland is heading for some form of military association with the US, the EU and Britain.
This means that the clear winner in the Irish general election was NATO, an American-led military alliance of 32 countries.
Welcome to the new, aligned Ireland, which in this general election has been sleep-walking into war.
Why is the Dublin government keen to abandon neutrality? It is under pressure from the EU, where only Ireland, Austria and Malta remain neutral. (Finland and Sweden were neutral, but they joined NATO after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.)
The EU requires all member states to support its foreign policy, a situation which conflicts with Ireland’s neutrality. So Ireland has a choice: leave the EU (howls of protest from northern nationalists) or dump neutrality.
In 2008 Irish voters rejected the Lisbon Treaty, which placed EU law above Irish law. So the referendum was held a second time, with Micheál Martin assuring the Dáil in July 2009 that the treaty “does not affect or prejudice Ireland’s traditional policy of military neutrality”. The referendum was passed on the basis of that pledge.
The significance of this is that if Donald Trump withdraws US support for Ukraine, the EU will be Ukraine’s main military backer. A non-neutral Ireland will then be required to place the Irish army at the disposal of the EU, NATO and Britain to fight the Russians in Crimea.
This will be nothing new. In the Crimean War (1854-56), Britain sent 111,300 soldiers to Crimea, 30,000 of which were Irish.
Just a few years after the Famine and the failed Young Ireland rebellion of 1848, nationalist enthusiasm was channelled towards fighting Russia.
The Dublin Evening Post described how thousands cheered the 50th Foot Regiment as they marched to war through Dublin, including “the gownsmen who, at the front of Trinity College, welcomed the soldiery by waving caps and shillelaghs”.
In February 1854, a Punch Magazine illustration showed the regiment marching through Kingstown (Dún Laoghaire) to board a ship to take them to war, as the crowd waved union flags. (Atonement for the Famine was apparently to be found in killing Russians.)
As usual, the Irish fought gallantly in Britain’s interests. Charles Davis Lucas from Poyntzpass won Britain’s first Victoria Cross.
Today, 30 years after the failed IRA rebellion and 20 years after the collapse of the Irish economy, war with Russia is again becoming rather appealing.
Ireland has already joined the EU Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO), the Common Security & Defence Policy (CSDP) and EU Battlegroups. It is also a member of NATO’s oddly named Partnership For Peace.
Irish soldiers have served with NATO forces in Afghanistan and the Balkans and on European Union missions in Africa – unusual activity for a neutral nation.
While the parties were electioneering, Ukraine began firing British and US missiles into Russia and Putin replied by launching a hypersonic missile against Ukraine. Remarkably, no political party seemed to notice.
In the television debates between the 10 party leaders last week and the three main party leaders this week, the chairs did not raise foreign policy. There appears to be a general acceptance in the south that Brussels now speaks for Ireland.
The Crimean War included the infamous Charge of the Light Brigade, in which 100 Irish cavalry soldiers took part. Of the 600 who rather foolishly charged on horseback against Russian artillery, over 400 were killed.
Alfred Tennyson’s poem on the charge described how they rode into the valley of death. The Irish army has many valleys of death ahead of it.
The only thing we need now to complete the repeat of history is for an English poet to praise it all in verse.
For a people supposedly obsessed by history, the Irish don’t learn easily from it.
Welcome to the new, aligned Ireland, which in this general election has been sleep-walking into war