IRA 'invasion' scare in 1939

WWII fuelled paranoia about Ireland

By Paul Reynolds BBC News Online's World Affairs Correspondent

A secret report for the British Government in 1939 predicted an IRA attack on Northern Ireland, possibly joined by the Irish army, according to documents released by the Public Record Office.

However, the report was immediately and comprehensively rubbished by the British Representative in Dublin, Sir John Maffey.

He went on to warn that partition gave to the IRA its "last and final battle cry" and contained "ugly possibilities of recurring and violent explosions".

He criticised both the then Irish President, Eamon de Valera (whom he called a "Spanish American"), as "not the man" for writing a new chapter" of relations with Britain and NI loyalists for being "bars on the road to a pact with Ireland."

A batch of rumours ...not too much attention should be paid to them.

Sir John Maffey

The secret report, known as QRS 154 and dated 28 November 1939, was based on an unnamed source and gave an alarming account of how the IRA had recruited 700 men in Cork and had received Bren (light machine) guns from a German submarine.

The source predicted an IRA attack. It said: "Definite plans are being laid by the IRA to launch an armed attack on Northern Ireland between Christmas 1939 and March 1940."

It added that if de Valera tried to intervene, then the Irish army might mutiny and join the attack.

It stated: "90% of the Eire army are in whole hearted agreement with the IRA's aim of the early abolition of the border, by force if necessary."

The report caused consternation in the British Government, already at war with Germany, and was even sent to the Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain.

Report dismissed

The "New IRA" - as it was called - had never given up claims on NI and some of its members were on hunger strike in Ireland in protest against their arrest by de Valera.

Two IRA men had been hanged in England for a bombing in Coventry not long before.

But nerves were steadied by Sir John Maffey.

He said the report was "quite untrue" and remarked that the IRA had "no means of getting the lorries, petrol and so forth for any organized movement".

He added: "The bulk of Eire's army is loyal to the government."

He followed up this initial assessment with a longer (15 page) letter to London plus an 11 page postscript which is remarkable for the historical sweep of his approach to Anglo-Irish relations.

The timetable of history might have been different, but the terminus would have been the same

Sir John Maffey

Sir John was not a man easily given to panic.

He had been political officer in the Khyber Pass and then Governor General of the Sudan. And he proved to be right. There was no invasion and no mutiny.

He dismissed the secret report as a "batch of rumours... not too much attention should be paid to them".

He wrote: "You can discount all the rumours of extensive drillings, receipt of arms from German submarines, plans for attacking the Northern border etc."

He reported that he had seen the funeral of an IRA hunger striker and said: "I was struck by the general apathy of all present."

Maffey was rather scornful of de Valera and is at times disparaging about the Irish.

He noted that farm production is rarely above a certain level, adding: "This is sometimes ascribed to the shortcomings of the human element."

Colonial attitude

His gloomy view was that: "Here you find the mentality and religious outlook of the Mediterranean coupled with an intense racial feeling and a dark Iberian strain of cruelty and restiveness."

But his at times colonial attitude gives way in his postscript to an almost lyrical acceptance of Irish independence.

"What has happened was from the first inevitable," he wrote.

"Our via dolorosa might have been shorter or longer, less or more bitter. but we had to travel it in the end.

"The timetable of history might have been different, but the terminus would have been the same."

And he appeared not to like the Northern loyalists much, calling for a "broad minded and tolerant spirit in place of a narrow sectional bitterness, in the guise of loyalty to King and Empire."

His letters were described by one official in London as "impressive" and not much more seems to have been heard about "IRA invasions".