This work was supported in part by the University of South Florida Research and Creative Scholarship Grant Program under Grant no. 123593 RO.

1. Megaw, John, “British Subjects and Eire Citizens,” Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly 3 (11 1949): 139.Google Scholar The unique nature of the provisions lay more in their content than in their application to Ireland. Citizenship had been an ambiguous area of Anglo-Irish relations ever since the birth of the Irish Free State. For an analysis of the early years, see O'Grady, Joseph P., “The Irish Free State Passport and the Question of Citizenship, 1921–4,” Irish Historical Studies 26, 104;Google Scholar see also Macmillan, Gretchen, “British Subjects and Irish Citizens: The Passport Controversy, 1923–24,” Eire-Ireland 26.Google Scholar

2. As of 1994, Irish citizens continue to be a favored alien group in Britain, maintaining rights of free entry, employment and the franchise.

3. Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick, TUC Papers, MSS 292/107.5/1, TUC to M. Oliver, October 18, 1945. The TUC's concerns are understandable when one remembers that in July 1945 forty-two percent of the national labor was employed in the forces or directly supplying them; Economic Survey for 1947, CMD 7046, paragraph 28. For a general history of the 1945–51 Labour government see Morgan, K., Labour in Power 1945–51 (Oxford, 1984).Google Scholar

4. Public Record Office, London. (Except where otherwise stated, all archival records are taken from this source.) CAB 129/6 CP(46)32, January 30, 1946; CP(46)35, February 1, 1946; CAB 134/301, Foreign Labour Committee 1st Meeting, March 14, 1946.

5. Economic Survey for 1947, CMD 7046, paragraph 124. Reviewing the survey led the cabinet to conclude that “the general excess of demand over supply—or, in other words the fact that we are trying to do more than can be done with the present resources of the country—shows itself most plainly in the shortage of manpower to meet requirements.” CAB129/6 CP(47)20, January 7, 1947.

6. CAB12916 CP(47)20, January 7, 1947. Assessing the government's first full year in office, the sympathetic popular newspaper, the Daily Mirror, concluded that the general record was “good” but that the government had failed in the key area of labor “to attract men and women into the three great industries on which so much of prosperity depends—agriculture, coal and textiles.” Daily Mirror, July 29, 1946. In addition to these more obviously “essential” industries, the government added domestic service. This superficially odd choice referred not to third or fourth servants for wealthy families, however, but to servants for “hardship households” such as farms or professional surgeries, and most importantly numerically, domestics for hospitals and hostels.

7. CABI34/301, Memo by Foreign Labour Committee, May 14, 1946. The Royal Commission's final report concluded that the UK population was reproducing itself at six percent below replacement level, and highlighted the subsequent declining ratio of producers to consumers which would inevitably follow. Royal Commission of Population, CMD 7695 (London: HMSO, 1949).Google Scholar

8. Economic Survey for 1947, CMD 7046.

9. Daily Graphic and Sketch, January 24, February 11, 13, 1947. For a detailed history of the fuel crisis and its effects, see Cooper, Susan, “Snoek Piquante,” in Age of Austerity 1945–51, ed. Sissons, Michael and French, Philip (London, 1963), 35–57;Google ScholarRobertson, Alex, The Bleak Midwinter 1947 (Manchester, 1987).Google Scholar

10. The Political Diary of Hugh Dalton 1918–40, 1945–60, ed. Pimlott, Ben (London, 1986).Google Scholar See for example the entry for August 8, 1947. Dalton felt sufficiently strongly that he threatened to resign unless cuts were made.

11. Tomlinson, Jim, “Labour and the Trade Unions, 1945–51,” in The Attlee Years, ed. Tiratsoo, Nick (London, 1991), 90–105.Google Scholar

12. CAB128/9 CM 8(47), January 16, 1947; CM 14(47), January 30, 1947.

13. Newspapers carried government advertisements extolling the virtues of “a well-paid man's job” in mines made more attractive by the addition of pithead baths, improved wages, a five-day week, and exemptions from National Service. LAB 13/278, Ministry of Labour and National Service Publicity: Recruitment for Coalmining Industry, July 9, 1947; TUC Papers, MSS 292/107.5/1, Joint Consultative Committee Coalmining Industry, no date; CAB129/6 CP(46)35, February 1, 1946; LAB 12/513, Stafford Sir Cripps' Press Conference, January 29, 1948. TUC Papers, MSS 292/107.5/1, Publicity in Relation to Manpower Programmes, no date; Minister of Health Aneurin Bevan, for example, urged nurses to recruit women into the profession from among their friends; Daily Mirror, July 17, 18, 1946. The Mirror's editorial, the next day, which suggested that there would be “plenty of girls” willing to take up nursing upon the improvement of pay and conditions, suggests that the ambiguous nature of the labor shortage was recognized by contemporaries.

14. “Lend A Hand on the Land” volunteers were urged to spend their vacation working on farms helping to bring in the potato harvest. In return for such work they received pay, room and board, reduced railway fares, and recreational facilities. The agricultural sector was particularly hard-hit by the repatriation of German and Italian prisoners of war, 175,000 of whom had been working on the land in December 1945, but many of whom by mid-1946 were in the process of returning home. TUC Papers, MSS 292/107.5/1, National Conference of Trade Union Executives on Production and Manpower, February 19, 1946. Advertisements were placed both by the Ministry of Labour and the Board of Trade and consistently linked higher exports with an increased standard of living. See for example Daily Graphic and Sketch, January 4, 1947, and Daily Mirror, August 12, 1946. The details of the Control of Engagement Order were negotiated with the TUC. TUC Papers, MSS 292/107.17/4, Joint Consultative Committee, Control of Labour.

15. Pimlott, , Dalton Diary, October 2, 1947.Google Scholar

16. This figure includes the Polish veterans to whom Churchill had promised a home and the displaced persons, predominantly Germans, Ukranians, Yugoslavs, Estonians, and Latvians, recruited by the Attlee administration from the postwar refugee camps. Continental alien immigration figures taken from LAB13/1098, Utilization of available manpower of participating countries, Employment of Foreign Women in Domestic Employment in the UK; LAB13/819, Recruitment of Workers from Abroad, General Survey of the Various Schemes Particularly in Relations to Costs; LAB 13/44, minute by Ball, July 14, 1949. For a full history of the Polish immigrants see Sword, Keith et al. , The Creation of the Polish Community in Britain, 1939–1950 (London, 1989)Google Scholar, and Zubrzycki, J., Polish Immigrants in Britain: A Study of Adjustment (The Hague, 1956).CrossRefGoogle Scholar For the history of displaced persons see Kay, Diana and Miles, Robert, Refugees or Migrant Workers: European Volunteer Workers in Britain 1946–1951 (London, 1992);Google ScholarWyman, Mark, DP: Europe's Displaced Persons, 1945–1951 (Philadelphia, 1989);Google ScholarTannahill, J. A., European Volunteer Workers in Britain (Manchester, 1958);Google ScholarProudfoot, Malcolm J., European Refugees (Evanston, 1956);Google ScholarPaul, Kathleen, “The Politics of Citizenship in Post-War Britain,” Contemporary Record, 6 (Winter 1992):452–73;CrossRefGoogle ScholarStadulis, Elizabeth, “The Resettlement of Displaced Persons in the United Kingdom,” Population Studies 3 (1949):207–37.Google Scholar

17. Traditionally regarded as the first stage of English colonization, the Norman invasion of 1169 was, in fact, predated by English ecclesiastical interest in Ireland, and was followed not by a period of continuous rule but by centuries of struggle between those representing government from London and those who fought for an Ireland free of English influence. The battle lines were sometimes blurred as descendants of early Norman “invaders” fought against Tudor control and as descendants of seventeenth-century English “planters” fought against Victorian governments. Among the more recent histories of England's Irish Question and Ireland's English Problem are Boyce, D. George, Nationalism in Ireland, 2nd ed. (London, 1991);Google ScholarFoster, R., Modern ireland 1600–1972 (London, 1989);Google ScholarTownshend, Charles, Political Violence in Ireland: Government and Resistance since 1848 (Oxford, 1983);Google ScholarMokyr, Joel, Why Ireland Starved: A Quantitative and Analytical History of the Irish Economy 1800–1850 (London, 1983);Google ScholarCanny, Nicholas, “The Marginal Kingdom: Ireland as a Problem in the First British Empire,” in Strangers Within the Realm: Cultural Margins of the First British Empire, ed. Bailyn, Bernard and Morgan, Philip D. (Chapel Hill, 1991).Google Scholar Among older works see Hechter, Michael, Internal Colonialism: The Celtic Fringe in British National Development, 1536–1966 (Berkeley, 1975);Google ScholarLyons, F. S. L., Ireland Since the Famine, rev. ed. (London, 1973);Google ScholarBeckett, J. C., The Making of Modern Ireland (New York, 1966).Google Scholar

18. Though never formally a colony, Ireland's position within the United Kingdom was in some ways closer to India than Scotland. Of the four nations in the UK, for example, only Ireland had a governor-general, only Ireland had its own civil service and armed militia, and only Ireland waged a sustained physical war of independence.

19. The Free State came two years after Ireland was first (temporarily) partitioned under the terms of the Government of Ireland Act, 1920. According to the 1937 Irish Constitution, the name of the state was Ireland, or in Gaelic Eire. As such it represented the Irish government's claim to the whole island of Ireland. It suited the UK government, however, to use the Irish term as though to differentiate between Ireland and its constituent parts Eire and Northern Ireland.

20. Approximately 170,000 Irish men served in the British Army during World War I. Recent histories of Irish migration include Swift, Roger and Gilley, Sheridan, eds., The Irish in Britain 1815–1939 (Maryland, 1989);Google ScholarLees, L. H., Exiles of Erin: Irish Migrants in Victorian London (Ithaca, 1979);Google ScholarWilliamson, J. G., “The Impact of the Irish on British Labour Markets during the Industrial Revolution,” Journal of Economic History, xiv (09, 1986):693–721;CrossRefGoogle ScholarO'Tuathaigh, M. A. G., “The Irish in Nineteenth Century Britain and Problems of Interpretation,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 1981.Google Scholar See also Curtis, L. P., Anglo-Saxons and Celts (Bridgeport, 1968);Google ScholarJackson, J. A., The Irish in Britain (London, 1963).Google Scholar For a brief overview of general immigration to Britain. and the Irish migrant's place within that flow, see Holmes, Colin, A Tolerant Country? Immigrants, Refugees and Minorities in Britain (London, 1991).Google Scholar

21. During the Depression, emigration from the Free State initially fell but soon recovered, reaching twenty-six thousand in 1937 alone. Lee, Joseph, Ireland 1912–1985 Politics and Society (Cambridge, 1989), 187.Google Scholar

22. Issacs, Julius, British Post-War Migration, Occasional Papers XVII (Cambridge, 1954).Google Scholar In addition to this civilian contribution, just under forty thousand citizens of Eire enlisted in the British army, matching in numbers though not in proportion Northern Ireland's military contribution. DO35/1230, Comparing Ulster and Eire's Contributions, no date.

23. LAB13/1005, Statistics Relating to Persons Arriving From Overseas Applying for National Insurance Cards During 1960 Compared with 1959, February, 1961. Only in 1960, when colonial citizens and non-UK resident British subjects feared losing their rights of entry and thus embarked on a “beat-the-ban” rush, did total colonial and Commonwealth migration significantly surpass Irish migration. Figures for that year read 54,475 colonial, 54,016 Commonwealth, 54,682 rest of the world, and 72,962 from the Irish Republic—still a significant figure for a country of three million. See also Commission on Emigration and Other Population Problems, 1948–1954, Reports (Dublin, 1954);Google Scholar PREM 11/824, Report of the Committee on the Social and Economic Problems arising from the Growing Influx into the United Kingdom of Coloured Workers from Other Commonwealth Countries, August 3, 1955; The Irish Times, March 16, 1961. Census figures taken from Ryan, Liam, “Irish Emigration to Britain Since World War II,” in Migrations: The Irish at Home and Abroad, ed. Kearney, Richard (Dublin, 1990).Google Scholar

24. Interview with the His Grace, the Archbishop of Liverpool, who in the postwar years was responsible for initiating and co-ordinating the Catholic church's reception of Irish migrants.

25. HO213/1330, Basis On Which Irish Labour Control Is To Be Continued After 31 March 1947. Irish females were not subject to control, but generally entered domestic service or nursing.

26. DO 35/3917, Ministry of Labour Arrangements for the Transfer of Workers from the Irish Republic to the United Kingdom, August 3, 1951.

27. Brown, Terence, Ireland: A Social and Cultural History, 1922 to the Present (Ithaca, 1985).Google Scholar Brown reports that “there was in much of the country, a deep urge toward selfsufficiency, a conviction that the life of an Irish small farm represented a purity and decency of life that could set Ireland apart from the more commercial societies that surrounded her” (112).

28. The Statute of Westminster formally recognized Dominion equality with Britain and marks a critical stage in the evolution of Commonwealth relations. See Lyons, , Ireland Since the Famine, 507–10.Google Scholar

29. Lyons, , Ireland Since the Famine, 518–19;Google Scholar Fanning, Independent Ireland, 117–20. In 1936 the UK and all dominion parliaments had to pass legislation facilitating and acknowledging the abdication of Edward VIII. De Valera used the opportunity to reduce the role of the English Crown in Irish affairs, specifically reserving the relationship between Eire and the Crown to external policy.

30. Brown, Ireland, 139. For a more detailed analysis of Irish neutrality see Fisk, Robert, In Time of War: Ireland, Ulster and the Price of Neutrality, 1939–1945 (London, 1985).Google Scholar

31. This was the conclusion of the 1938 Government Committee on Seasonal Migration, cited in Bew, Paul, Hazelkorn, Ellen, and Patterson, Henry, The Dynamics of Irish Politics (London, 1989), 75.Google Scholar

32. Hoppen, K. Theodore, Ireland Since 1800: Conflict and Conformity (London, 1989), 218Google Scholar, citing Vaughn, W. E. and Fitzpatrick, A. J., eds., Irish Historical Statistics: Population, 1821–1971 (Dublin, 1978)Google Scholar and Drudy, P. J., “Migration Between Ireland and Britain since Independence” in Ireland and Britain since 1922: Irish Studies 5, ed. Drudy, P. J. (Cambridge, 1986), 107–23.Google Scholar See also Commission on Emigration and Other Problems (Dublin, 1954).Google Scholar

33. de Paor, Liam, “Ireland's Identities,” Crane Bag 3 (1979), 25;Google Scholar Cited in Brown, Ireland, 165.

34. Lee, J. J., Ireland, 227Google Scholar, citing an internal Irish Government memorandum, May 18, 1942.

35. See particularly the work of Patrick Kavanagh, Austin Clarke and Brenden Behan. Details of the postwar economy, and the importance of emigration within it, appear in Brown, , Ireland, 162–82;Google ScholarLee, , Ireland, 258–328;Google ScholarBew, , Hazelkorn, , and Patterson, , Dynamics of Irish Politics, 41–89;Google ScholarFoster, , Modern Ireland, 563–82;Google ScholarFanning, Ronan, Independent Ireland (Dublin, 1983), 143–86.Google Scholar

36. Bew, , Hazelkorn, , and Patterson, , Dynamics of Irish Politics, 219.Google Scholar So high were postwar emigration figures that the government instituted a Commission on Emigration in 1948, the findings of which suggested that contemporary migrants were leaving not in order to Sustain rural lifestyles, as earlier emigrants had done, but in rejection of them. In response to these conclusions and other analyses of the economy, Irish politicians in the late 1950s and 1960s attempted to steer a new economic course for Ireland, determined to halt the hemorrhage of the young by providing opportunity and prosperity at home. In 1946, however, as the British Nationality Act was being written, that new course lay in the future; for the present there was only the fact and the need of continuing emigration. Brown, , Ireland, 132–82;Google ScholarFoster, , Modern Ireland, 539.Google Scholar

37. Nineteenth-century Irish nationalists experienced similar difficulties. In the 1880s, the UK government instituted a number of state-sponsored emigration schemes. The problem for Irish politicians in Westminster was how to denounce the need for the schemes—i.e., the need for emigration—and yet at the same time extract the best possible terms for Irish emigrants wishing to avail themselves of the opportunity to emigrate to other parts of H.M. dominions. For the history of state-sponsored emigration schemes see Constantine, Stephen, ed., Emigrants and Empire: British Settlement in the Dominions Between the Wars (Manchester, 1990);Google ScholarMaichow, Howard, Population Pressures: Emigration and Government in Late 19th Century Britain (California, 1979);Google ScholarGlass, D. V. and Taylor, P. A. M., eds., Population and Emigration in Nineteenth Century Britain (Dublin, 1976);Google ScholarJohnston, H. J. M., British Emigration Policy 1815–1830 (Oxford, 1972);Google ScholarCowan, Helen, British Emigration to North America (Toronto, 1961);CrossRefGoogle ScholarRichards, Eric, “How did Poor People Emigrate from the British Isles to Australia in the Nineteenth Century?” Journal of British Studies 32 (07 1993):250–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38. This economic dependence extended beyond labor. In 1937, 91 percent of Irish exports went to Britain. Lee, Ireland, 187.

39. PREM8/851, Norman Brook to Clement Attlee, November 1945. The “common code” was the term used to describe the means by which all members of the British Empire acquired their British nationality.

40. For a more detailed account of the process by which this policy was arrived at, see Paul, Kathleen, “;‘British Subjects’ and ‘British Stock’: Labour's Post-War Imperialism,” Journal of British Studies 34 (04 1995):233–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

41. HO213/153, Relationship Between British Nationality and Eire Citizenship, March 17, 1944. Davies, the author of this memorandum, believed that “whatever effect these provisions were intended to have, or have, within Eire itself, the view has been publicly expressed by British Ministers and consistently acted upon by British Departments of State, that nothing contained within this Act has any effect one way or the other in contemplation of British law, on the British status of those who come within its operation.”

42. HO213/201, Position of Eire, no date.

43. Ibid.

44. HO213/201, Becket to Dowson, May 9, 1946; Position of Eire, no date; PREM8/851 CP(46)305, Joint Memo by the Home and Dominion Secretaries, July 29, 1946.

45. HO 213/420, Eire Citizens Wishing to Remain British Subjects. The Home Office suggested that police registration of the Irish in Britain would create “a very heavy extra burden,…greatly inflate records” and perhaps bring the “whole system of aliens' control…into disrepute.”

46. HO213/201, Becket to Dowson, May 9, 1946.

47. CAB133/6, British Commonwealth Conference on Nationality and Citizenship, 2nd Meeting, February 4, 1947. In addition to the constitutional position, Irish officials were bound by a reluctance to contradict de Valera's frequent public assertions that no Eire citizen was a British subject. F0372 5011, Archer to Dixon, January 24, 1947.

48. Ibid. Archer regarded it “as a sine qua non that we should not be asked to legislate to deprive any individuals of their British subject status if they wished to retain it.”

49. FO372/5011, Brass to Becket, January 11, 1947. UK officials surmised that the Irish Government was “very keen” that Irish citizens should not become aliens in Britain.

50. HO213/428, Home Office Circular 48/1949.

51. CAB133/6, British Commonwealth Conference on Nationality and Citizenship, 2nd Meeting, February 4, 1947; HO213/377, Revised Instructions to Immigration Staff, no date. The inclusion of this provision demonstrates yet one more facet of the flexibility of notions of citizenship in postwar Britain.

52. The 1937 Irish Constitution exemplifies the ambiguity surrounding partition. Articles 2 and 3 of the constitution laid claim to the territory of the whole of Ireland, but having done so also provided that for the duration of partition its laws applied only to twenty-six counties. Significantly, the 1993 Downing Street Declaration included the Irish government's Commitment to giving up this clause as a step toward peace in Northern Ireland.

53. FO372/5011, Archer to Dixon, January 24, 1947.

54. Parliamentary Debates (Commons), 5th Ser., vol. 453, cols. 1095–1119.

55. Dail Eireann Parliamentary Debates: Official Report, vol. 113, cols. 1519–22.

56. HO213/1330, Hardman to Roy, March 20, 1947; Lee, Ireland, 227, citing Walshe to de Valera, May 18, 1942.

57. CAB128/13 CM 71(48), November 12, 1948; CABI29/30 CP48(253), November, 1948, memorandum by Lord Rugby, the UK representative to Dublin. Eamon de Valera was the contemporary politician most associated with radical Irish nationalism. It was he who had opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 and had introduced both the 1935 Citizenship Act and the 1937 constitution.

58. This choice of date is open to interpretation. Some might suggest that Irish men and women had been dying for the cause of Irish nationalism since 1169. The date does, however, represent the year in which, during the Easter Rising, a republic was first declared to be in existence, and it was to this republic that twentieth-century republicans swore allegiance.

59. The Irish Civil War pitted those who favored rejection of the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty against those who believed that, while short of a republic, the treaty's terms represented the best option available at the time. Led by Michael Collins, the pro-treaty forces constituted the Free State Government and were ultimately the victors.

60. MacBride, H. E. Sean, “Anglo-Irish Relations,” International Affairs 25 (1949):257–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

61. In July 1948, while discussing other matters, MacBride “stumbled” into referring to Ireland as being outside the commonwealth. Upon being challenged by de Valera, he stood by the implication of his words and thus gave his prime minister a dilemma. Costello could either retract his foreign minister's speech, thereby proclaiming Ireland to be very much within the British commonwealth, or he could allow the logic of Irish nationalism to take its course toward a formally-stated republic and thereby risk the wrath of London. This wrath was not to be lightly regarded. One explanation of de Valera's failure to proclaim an Irish Republic in 1937 was that “the merest prospect that the multitude of Irish-born citizens living in Britain might, perhaps, be deprived of their rights there with the consequential prospects of enforced repatriation, to say nothing of the choking off of the safety valve of Irish emigration to the United Kingdom, would give any Irish government nightmares.” Fanning, Independent Ireland, 118.

62. DO 35/3062, Conference with Eire Ministers, October 17, 1948; Brief for Prime Minister, October 13, 1948. Following de Valera's preparation of repeal legislation prior to leaving office in February, 1948, UK officials had begun to prepare their response. For a detailed history and analysis of these negotiations, see McCabe, Ian, A Diplomatic Hisory of Ireland, 1948–49 (Dublin, 1991);Google ScholarFanning, Ronan, “London and Belfast's Response to the Declaration of the Republic of Ireland, 1948–49,” International Affairs 58 (1981–1982):95–114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

63. CAB 129/30 CP(48)262, UK Reply to Eire Government, November 10, 1948.

64. CAB 129/30 CP(48)263, Possible Measures to Mitigate Possible Disadvantages of the Repeal of the External Relations Act, November 10, 1948.

65. D035/3979, The Departure of Eire from the Commonwealth.

66. CAB129/30 CP(48)258, November 8, 1948.

67. CAB128/13 CM 73(48), November 15, 1948; CAB129/31, November 16, 1948; D035/3962, Evatt to Attlee, October 12, 1948. According to a 1949 foreign office summary, “the attitude of the Commonwealth statesmen…who were apprehensive of the effect on the large Irish colonies in their own countries of any decision to treat Eire as ‘foreign’ to the Commonwealth” heavily influenced the decision to accommodate the Irish. FO371/76370, Eire and The Commonwealth. This was not the first time that Irish nationalism was protected by dominion sensibility. In 1931, during the debate upon the Statue of Westminster, Winston Churchill sought to include a clause forbidding Irish revocation of the 1922 Treaty. The Eire government sent a warning letter urging that such “legislative enactment” would be ill-taken. Current Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin supported the Irish view on the grounds that Churchill's restrictive clause “would offend not only the Irish Free State, not only Irishmen all over the world, but other dominions as well.” Lyons, , Ireland Since the Famine, 509–10.Google Scholar

68. CAB 128/13 71(48), November 12, 1948.

69. CAB129/30 CP(48)258, November 8, 19488; D035/3962, Rugby to Commonwealth Relations Office, October 12, 1948; DO35/3960, Rugby to Machtig, September 7, 1948; CAB128/13 CM74(48), November 18, 1948; D035/3979, The Departure of Eire from the Commonwealth.

70. UK policymakers feared two challenges in this area: First, that foreign nations would demand trade preferences akin to those enjoyed by Eire; second, that foreign nations would conclude such arrangements with each other as a means of discriminating against nations with whom most-favored-nation obligations existed, specifically the UK.

71. CAB129/31 CP(48)272, November 17, 1948.

72. CAB 128/13 CM73(48), November 15, 1948.

73. CAB 129/31 CP (48) 272, November 17, 1948.

74. CAB 128/13 CM 74 (48), November 18, 1948. A 1949 Foreign Office review of Eire's dealings with the Commonwealth, presumably taking its line from Jowitt's report, concluded that the decision to accommodate Eire was taken “with reluctance” on the basis of food and manpower imports and “the attitude of the Commonwealth statesmen.” FO371/76370, Eire and The Commonwealth.

75. FO371/76369, Minute by G. W. Furlonge, January 21, 1949.

76. FO371/76369, Partition: Possible Action by the Government of Eire before the United Nations, January 11, 1949.

77. FO371/76370, Foreign Office communications, February 12, 19, 21, 1949.

78. DO35/3979, The Departure of Eire from the Commonwealth.

79. FO371/76370, MacBride to Bevin, March 9, 1949.

80. If de Valera held back from a republic in 1937 for fear of closing the emigrant safety valve, he was also influenced by the hope that “even a vestigial Commonwealth link might make it less difficult to end partition.” Fanning, , Independent Ireland, 119.Google Scholar

81. CAB129/32 CP(49)4, Memo for the Prime Minister and Report of the Working Party on Ireland, January 7, 1949.

82. Ulster, one of the four provinces of the whole of Ireland, contained nine counties of which three were in Fire. The remaining six constituted Northern Ireland. Protestants in the North had long informally used the title Ulster to describe their homeland, in defiance of southern nationalists who resented the use of the name of an Irish province only part of which was in the North. Thus, Northern Ireland's formal adoption of the title “Ulster” would have been a deliberate slight to the Dublin government.

83. In 1940 de Valera had rejected an offer of future Irish unity in return for immediate Irish entry into war both because he believed that a postwar British government would be unlikely to coerce Ulster Protestants in order to stand by a wartime promise and because Irish neutrality stood as an international sign of Irish autonomy. However, he undertook to consider unity in return for an Irish neutrality involving mobilization of the entire country for home defence and British use of Irish ports in case of invasion. Not surprisingly, the British government rejected this offer. This missed opportunity for unity has variously been blamed upon the British and the Irish. In fact, as historian Robert Fisk makes clear, although speaking the same language, de Valera and Churchill interpreted Irish unity to mean very different things. To Churchill, it signified a renegotiation of the 1921 treaty; to de Valera it marked the aspiration of his life—an independent, fully autonomous nation-state. Thus it was always unlikely that the two would find common ground, especially in the heightened tensions of war. Fisk, , In Time of War, 186–219.Google Scholar

84. CAB 128/13 CM 74 (48), November 18, 1948.

85. The Irish government agreed to introduce legislation which would accord British subjects in Ireland rights similar to those enjoyed by Irish citizens in the Commonwealth. For all of Britain's anxiety about most-favored-nation treaties, it was generally believed by the end of the negotiations that there would not be a challenge. If it did happen, Commonwealth lawyers were committed to establishing a defense, and in the last resort Ireland acknowledged that preferences now enjoyed would have to be surrendered.

86. Owen, Nicholas, “‘Responsibility Without Power’: The Attlee Governments and the End of the British Rule in India,” in Tirattsoo, , Attlee Years (London, 1991):167–89.Google Scholar

87. In addition to the intangible sense of family, of course, one must add the physical reality of a great many more Irish-British families living in Britain than Indo-British.

88. CAB 129/30 CR(48)2, Cabinet Committee on Commonwealth Relations, May 21, 1948; CR(48)4, Cabinet Committee on Commonwealth Relations, July 21, 1948; CR(48)5, Cabinet Committee on Commonwealth Relations, september 14, 1948.

89. For a full discussion of “racialization” and the “race-making process” see B. Carter and M. Green, “‘Races’ and ‘Race-Makers’: The Politics of Racialisation,” Sage Race Relations Abstracts, 13, no. 1. See also Miles, R., Racism (London, 1989)Google Scholar and his Racism and Migrant Labour (London, 1982).

90. Paul, “‘British Subjects’ and ‘British Stock’.” Much of the present paragraph is drawn from this article.

91. PREM 8/827, Economic Policy Committee (48) June 15, 1948; Prem 8/827, “Arrival of 419 Jamaicans; CAB 129/28 CP(48)154, “Arrival in the UK of Jamaican Unemployed” June, 1948. Among the recent accounts of black postwar migration are Layton-Henry, Zig, The Politics of Immigration (Oxford, 1992);Google ScholarHiro, Dilip, Black British White British, 3rd ed. (London, 1991);Google ScholarGilroy, Paul, There Ain't No Black in the Union Jack (London, 1987);Google ScholarFryer, Peter, Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain (London, 1984);Google ScholarSivanandan, A., A Different Hunger: Writings on Black Resistance (London, 1982);Google ScholarRex, J. and Tomlinson, S., Colonial Immigrants in a British City (London, 1979).Google Scholar Among more classic works are Katznelson, Ira, Black Men White Cities: Race, Politics and Migration in United States, 1900–1930, and Britain, 1948–1968 (London, 1973);Google ScholarRose, E. J. B. et al. , Colour and Citizenship (Oxford, 1969);Google ScholarPeach, Ceri, West Indian Migration to Britain (London, 1968);Google ScholarFoot, Paul, Immigration and Race in British Politics (Harmondsworth, 1965).Google Scholar

92. See Paul, “The Politics of Citizenship in Post-War Britain.”

93. DO 35/3917, Ministry of Labour Response to Irish Charge d'Affairs telegram, August, 1951.

94. PREM 11/824, Report of the Committee on the Social and Economic Problems arising from the Growing Influx into the United Kingdom of Coloured Workers from Other Commonwealth Countries,” August 3, 1955.

95. Holmes, , A Tolerant Country?, 50–51.Google Scholar

96. CO 1032/195, Watt Memo, May 1, 1958.

97. Officials were particularly worried about the likely difficulty for UK electoral officers who would have to distinguish between British subjects and Irish citizens in order to compile the UK electoral register. It was thought unlikely that the Irish in Britain would themselves be capable of determining their nationality.

98. PREM 11/824, Report of the Committee on the Social and Economic Problems arising from the Growing Influx into the United Kingdom of Coloured Workers from Other Commonwealth Countries,” August 3, 1955.

99. CO 1032/121, Commonwealth Relations Office Re-Draft of Social and Economic Report, August 1955.

100. CAB 128/35 CC 61(61), November 9, 1961; CC 63 (61), November, 16, 1961.

101. CAB128/35 CC 63 (61), November 16, 1961. According to Butler, the Irish government was “willing to introduce legislation to enable them to control the admission of immigrants from other Commonwealth countries in transit for the United Kingdom, provided that the United Kingdom Government refrained from enforcing the provisions in the Bill against Irish citizens.” The Irish government's promise, like the UK Commonwealth Immigrants bill which it sought to accompany, was officially colorblind. It seems reasonable to infer, however, that the Irish government was aware of the specific target of the UK bill—British subjects and UK citizens of color—and was thus offering to act in support of that bill's intended purpose.