2. Potential Obstacles to an Irish UN Peacekeeping Policy

Ireland faced three potential obstacles to developing a UN peacekeeping policy after the founding of the global organization. First, Ireland was a neutral state although many argued Irish “neutrality” referred more to non-alignment rather than a Switzerland type of political and military neutrality. Would Irish state neutrality conflict with the early UN concept of being a collective security organization? Could Irish soldiers deploy under a request from the UN for peacekeepers? Second, Ireland did not hold membership in the UN. Ireland desired to enter the UN as a member after its inception in 1945 but found its requests blocked by Cold War politics and a Soviet veto. The Soviets vetoed Irish membership for nine years until a major compromise that permitted the simultaneous admission of sixteen countries in 1955. Third, the Irish Constitution placed the state military under Ireland’s Parliament (Dáil) which in turn passed annual legislation for the Government to provide oversight. Related to this point, the Irish army could not legally operate outside the boundaries of the state. Would the lack of a permanent military bill and use of annual temporary bills have an impact on deployed Irish peacekeepers?