Ireland's Helping Hand to Europe
Post-war Marshall Plan aid to Europe and indeed Ireland is well documented, but practically nothing is known about simultaneous Irish aid to Europe. This book provides a full record of the aid – mainly food but also clothes, blankets, medicines, etc. – that Ireland donated to continental Europe, including France, the Netherlands, Hungary, the Balkans, Italy, and zones of occupied Germany.
Starting with Ireland’s neutral wartime record, often wrongly presented as pro-German when Ireland in fact unofficially favoured the western Allies, Jérôme aan de Wiel explains why Éamon de Valera’s government sent humanitarian aid to the devastated continent. His book analyses the logistics of collection and distribution of supplies sent abroad as far as the Greek islands.
Despite some alleged Cold-War hijacking of Irish relief – and this humanitarianism was not above the politics of that East-West confrontation – it became mostly a story of hope, generosity and European Christian solidarity. Rich archival records from Ireland and the European beneficiary countries, as well as contemporary local and national newspapers across Europe, allow the author to measure and describe not only the official but also the popular response to Irish relief schemes. This work is illustrated with contemporary photographs and some key graphs and tables that show the extent of the aid programme.
Introduction
PART I: Deciding & Organising Relief at Home
Chapter One: Two Worlds Poles Apart
Chapter Two: Handshake Debacle amidst Humanitarian Crisis
Chapter Three: ‘A drop in the ocean': The Decision to Send Relief
Chapter Four: Reaction and Organisation
Chapter Five: Archbishop McQuaid to the Rescue
Chapter Six: 1946, Second Phase of Relief
Chapter Seven: End of Relief
PART II: Distributing Irish Supplies Abroad
Chapter Eight: Irish Aid to Western Europe
Chapter Nine: Cooperation with the International Red Cross in Geneva
Chapter Ten: The Western Allied Zones in Germany
Chapter Eleven: Berlin, the Soviet Zone and eastern expellees
Chapter Twelve: Ireland’s aid to Central Europe; Austria, Czechoslovakia & Poland
Chapter Thirteen: Hungary
Chapter Fourteen: Ireland’s Aid to the Balkans: Albania, Bulgaria, Greece & Romania
Chapter Fifteen: Yugoslavia
Chapter Sixteen: Thanking Ireland
Conclusion
List of frequently used abbreviations