Manchester University Press - Ireland, West Germany and the New Europe, 1949-73

This groundbreaking book is an indispensable contribution to appreciating the dilemmas facing Ireland in the 'age of Brexit'. Encompassing an exhaustive account, it traces the relationship between Ireland and FRG by drawing on original material from both. It critiques depictions of Irish-German relations as peculiarly affable and explores the problems presented by trade, Britain, neutrality, NATO, Northern Ireland and the Cold War. The work contends the German 'economic miracle' was a vital stimulus for Ireland's tardy retreat from protectionism. It maintains that Ireland's reorientation was informed by lessons gleaned from Irish-German trade relations as well as a budding recognition of the potential offered by German industrial investment. This granted Germany weighty influence over the shape and direction of Ireland.

Reviews

'A substantial historical contribution to a Europeanist Irish Studies.'
Wilkommen go hÉirinn, Dublin Review of Books

Introduction
1. Ireland and Germany before 1949
2. Honeymoon
3. Emerging dissonance
4. Trade and agriculture in the 1950s
5. Irish industrialisation and the German 'economic miracle'
6. Germany, Lemass and foreign policy adaptation
7. Germany and Ireland's application to the EEC, 1961-63
8. The long road into Europe
9. Land wars, Nazis and the Troubles
Epilogue: Ireland, German reunification and remaking Europe
Select bibliography
Index