Journal of European Integration History – Revue d'histoire de l'

The Diplomacy of ‘dignified calm’ 101Italian Foreign Ministry] who, although well disposed, was inclined to look at mattersfrom the Community viewpoint and seemed to say that Irish entry to the Communitywas not as simple a matter as his Italian colleagues appeared to think. Creminadded that he had heard from Dutch sources that Hallstein had said that it wasnot clear what would happen to other countries besides Britain. Cremin felt thatthat seemed to be a retreat from what he had previously said to the Taoiseach.However, having achieved their medium term objective, it was a question ofwatching and awaiting the outcome of the British negotiations. In January 1963, deGaulle's veto on British entry put Irish membership out of reach.ConclusionIt would take another ten years before Ireland was accepted as a member of theEuropean Economic Community. Lemass, who was in declining health, resignedsuddenly in 1966 at the age of 67. Only Taoiseach for seven years, he did not live towitness Ireland's admission to the EEC. He retired from Dáil Éireann in 1969 anddied in 1971. Dr Whitaker wrote of him appreciatively some years later:“One can, however, safely assert that this pragmatic nationalist, who had erected thehigh tariff wall in the 1930s to shelter Ireland's infant industry, would have beenhappy to see it razed to the ground in return for the benefits to Ireland of membershipof the Community. He would have been gratified that many of the ‘infants’ werestrong enough to make their way against Continental as well as British competitors.”88The Irish Times in an editorial described Seán Lemass at the time of his death as“a mould breaker and a mould maker”. 89 While he had found it hard to abandon thesafe shores of protectionism, Lemass was not so rigid as to be unable to evaluatethe opportunities which membership of the EEC offered Ireland. While the 1962application failed, it signalled the death knell of the policy of protectionism,marked the consolidation of Monnet-style rational social and economic planning,and proved to be an irrevocable commitment to the achievement of Irish membershipof the EEC. The political and administrative experience gained in handling the1962 application, finally, demonstrated the prudence of the diplomacy of “dignifiedcalm” – a diplomatic style more often aspired to than practised by Dublin during1962. That earlier experience provided a new generation of diplomats and veteransalike with a valuable case study by which they could measure tactics and performancewhen, less than a decade later, they negotiated Irish entry into the EEC.Dermot Keogh88. T. K. WHITAKER, Interests, p. 77.89. The Irish Times, 12 May 1971.