By David Erdos
Published in Journal of Contemporary History, January 2025.
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Abstract

This article demonstrates that, notwithstanding Ireland's 1949 Commonwealth secession, it (re)established an informal external association with this grouping's principal concrete concerns, which remained quite extensive, that lasted throughout the 1950s. By law or practice, 1950s Ireland lifted alien restrictions on most Commonwealth citizens and its citizens received preferential treatment in most Commonwealth countries. It participated in the Commonwealth tariff ‘system' by both giving and receiving preferences based on ‘Commonwealth' status and by maintaining long-standing trade agreements with the UK, Canada and South Africa. As with all the Commonwealth bar Canada, it remained within the Sterling Area which greatly bolstered economic links. Ireland also participated in several lower-level Commonwealth fora and its ‘special position' was said to strikingly illustrate the Commonwealth's capacity to adjust. However, it took no part in high-level political consultation and, even in functional areas (with the singular exception of agricultural research), lacked privileges to exercise leadership or even clear rights. These limitations bolstered interest in rejoining especially in the late 1950s. However, allied to a background a recognition that the Commonwealth was becoming less central to concrete links including in the crucial UK context, this was rendered politically impossible by the unresolved issue of Partition.