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JOSEPH MORRISON SKELLY, Irish Diplomacy at the United Nations 1945-1965: National Interests and the International Order. Irish Academic Press, 1997, pp 256, ISBN 07165-2574-7, 35.00, h/b; ISBN 0-7165-2625-5, 15.00, p/b.
The Irish Free State made its debut on the international stage in 1923 when it joined the League of Nations. From the outset it experienced the constraints on all small states lacking in both experience and resources which, in turn, highlighted the difficulties facing an untried state cast adrift in an increasingly turbulent world. These constraints were compounded by an uncertain political status only resolved by passage of the Statute of Westminster. Over the duration Irish diplomacy has tried to surmount these constraints, by playing an active role in international fora rather than by bilateral diplomacy.
Irish diplomacy has utilized both the League and its successor, the United Nations, as a platform for pursuing an agenda in world politics that defined national interests in the terms of a moral demeanour. This moral demeanour meant eschewing militarism, naked aggression and the subversion of civil rights, by promoting the rights of small states over the hegemonic instincts of the `super-powers', and by offering its `good offices' and military personnel in the capacity of broker, mediator, and peacekeeper in all manner of international conflicts and territorial disputes that have disturbed the international peace.
This study is a celebration of a particularly energetic and successful phase in this endeavour....