Eoin Drea is senior analysis officer on the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Research.
Catherine Connolly’s election as Eire’s subsequent president highlights simply how delusional the nation has turn out to be in terms of safety. It must also function a wake-up name for different EU members when it comes to the nation’s unreliability on protection points.
Opposing Germany’s rearmament on the idea that it represents a “revitalization” of its “army industrial base” isn’t even Connolly’s most excessive place. To her, Berlin’s present spending plans are harking back to the army build-up within the Nineteen Thirties. She’s important of NATO, voted no to the Lisbon and Good treaties in Irish referenda and has known as Hamas “a part of the material of the Palestinian folks.” But, she romped house with practically 65 % of the vote.
That’s as a result of Connolly’s views aren’t fringe or some populist narrative — they really symbolize mainstream political sentiment on the Emerald Isle.
Because the EU begins specializing in rearmament, Eire’s touring within the actual wrong way. Even with struggle raging in Ukraine, America’s rising unpredictability and Russia probing undersea infrastructure in Irish waters, Dublin’s political tradition stays mired in myths of neutrality and ethical exceptionalism — and it’s refusing to budge.
This strategy is not credible in Brussels. And it’s why solely a protection union with Britain can save Eire now.
Regardless of bumper finances surpluses underpinned by surging receipts from U.S. tech and pharma corporations, Eire is refusing to spend extra on its armed forces. The nation’s protection spending has barely risen above inflation since 2022. It’s capital finances for protection stands at a paltry €300 million for 2026 — and that is in an EU nation with no fighter jets, navy ships with sporadically working weapons and solely sufficient sailors to ship a single vessel on patrol per day.
Dublin has demonstrably didn’t seize the geopolitical second, and is as an alternative being scarily naïve. And given the circumstances, solely a proper bilateral settlement with the U.Okay. can ship the territorial safety that Eire — and the EU’s western borders — desperately wants.
That is realpolitik, not Celtic sentimentality.
The case for a protection union rests on two inconvenient however simple truths. First, geography — not historical past — is future.
Eire and Britain share an island archipelago, in addition to a free journey space. Regardless of Brexit, there stays no bodily border between Southern and Northern Eire. And the nation has lengthy prioritized sustaining its frequent journey zone with Britain over doubtlessly becoming a member of the EU’s Schengen space.
The present actuality is that British jets already reply to threats in Irish airspace with the Irish authorities’s approval, and it’s the British Navy that hunts Russian threats in Irish waters. However Irish sovereignty can be higher protected by way of structured partnership — one alongside the strains of the Belgian and Dutch naval forces — than by way of the sort of cheapskate dependence that at present exists.
Second, the U.Okay. has what Eire merely refuses to offer: fighters, frigates, satellites, cyber infrastructure and institutional depth. France and Germany lack each proximity and functionality to constantly patrol the Irish Sea and North Atlantic. Continental European forces can’t scramble from close by airfields or deploy from Eire-adjacent ports on quick discover.
The framework I’m speaking about is slightly easy: Joint Anglo-Irish accountability for air policing and maritime surveillance in Irish zones, with Irish participation in joint command, coaching and procurement mechanisms. Eire would additionally spend money on complementary capabilities like patrol vessels, intelligence, cyber protection and infrastructure safety. And no Eire-based British bases can be obligatory; ahead deployment and joint operation facilities would suffice.
Talking extra broadly, a proper Anglo-Irish settlement would additionally embed Britain in EU protection coverage. A key goal in Brussels, contemplating the continued struggle in Ukraine and the uncertainty over future U.S. assist. Such a union would intertwine the safety aims of London, Washington and the EU, and is also narrowly tailor-made to placate the perennially disgruntled French.
No international adventures. No NATO. Simply credible safety capabilities in Irish waters and skies.
Eire has lengthy prided itself on being one among Europe’s most globalized economies. It hosts U.S. tech and pharma giants, and its financial system is fueled by their company taxes. Dublin is determined by free commerce and secure establishments. But, the identical political class celebrating such openness to world capital calls for insularity in terms of safety.
The cognitive dissonance is staggering. How can one host Apple, Google, and Pfizer whereas enjoying impartial on protection?
After all, opposition will undoubtedly come from the “1916 Brigade,” who worship neutrality as doctrine slightly than coverage, and see any British safety cooperation as treasonable. However this place is neither principled nor rational.
The 1916 Brigade desires of Western prosperity with out Western safety obligations — that’s not neutrality. It’s nativism wrapped in nationalist mythology. Austria — the neutrality mannequin some invoke — spends about thrice Eire’s protection share and maintains actual army functionality.
Merely put, Eire’s army helplessness has been backed by British and NATO-member taxpayers for a lot too lengthy. It’s time for the nation to concentrate on the current, not the previous.