Wartime Ireland is brought to life in dramatic colour in a new book from historian Michael B. Barry and photographer John O’Byrne. The Emergency in Colour gives a glimpse of what it was like to live in the country through this momentous period in Irish and world history. There are over 200 photographs from across the country, many of which have never been published before, all of them accompanied by fascinating and accessible captions.

 

Our new book The Emergency in Colour tells the story of the momentous events that affected Ireland over the period 1939 to 1945. This was during WWII, a time that has been euphemistically called ‘The Emergency’.

Given that the effects of the war rolled on for some years, we decided to also include the years up to 1949, the seminal year when the Irish state shook off any remaining imperial ties and made the unequivocal declaration of a republic. This volume is the logical continuation of our previous two books, The Irish Civil War in Colour and A Nation is Born.

Chapter 1 tells of the months leading up to the war, including how the IRA mounted a vicious, but pointless, bombing campaign in Britain. September 1939 brought the outbreak of war and Ireland’s decision to remain neutral.

Chapter 2 begins with the period of the ‘Phoney War’, until reality hit after Germany swept through Belgium and France. Britain was at its most vulnerable after Dunkirk, and as U-boat sinkings increased in the North Atlantic, Churchill’s eyes turned towards the Irish Treaty Ports. Panicked by wild tales of fifth columnists, consideration was given to invading this Achilles-heel of an island to the west.

The Germans, in developing their plan to invade Britain, also included a sub-plan to land on the south-east Irish coast. In time, the danger of invasion dissipated: the Germans were diverted by their invasion of the USSR and the British found that they could fight U-boats in the Atlantic from bases in Northern Ireland. They were also receiving quiet cooperation from the Irish Army intelligence service G2.

After the fall of France, the Luftwaffe were able to establish air bases along the coast, which allowed them to reach more distant locations, as Belfast found out with the devastating air raids of April–May 1941. A few weeks later, Dublin also had a rude awakening to the dangers of war (albeit on a miniscule scale compared to Belfast) when German bombs were dropped at North Strand.

In the meantime, the Irish Army, underfunded and neglected for decades, was endeavouring to expand and meet the challenge. It was woefully ill-equipped, possessing only light weaponry, some WWI artillery and armoured cars. The Air Corps had a potpourri of obsolete planes.

Continue reading in this week’s Ireland’s Own