On May 25 the Republic of Ireland announced it was considering imposing trade sanctions on the Israeli state. This follows Ireland’s recognition of the Palestinian state in May 2024 and the Israeli ambassador departure from Dublin in December of that year. In this light, Ireland has been lauded as a beacon of Palestinian solidarity. But praise for the Irish government is premised on media distortions and a mischaracterisation of the 26-County-state. In reality, Ireland is a dependency of the US: its economy is reliant on the US and its politics are defined by US interests. This has remained the case during Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people.

What has occurred is that the people of Ireland have identified with the Palestinian national cause, drawing upon the centuries of Irish suffering at the hands of Britain. The Irish capitalist establishment has steered its way through this solidarity by making whatever small gestures of solidarity have been forced upon it while continuing with its long-term collaboration with US and Israeli interests.

In fact, the Irish capitalist class are past masters of using the heritage of Irish rebellion to distract attention from the most reactionary policies. Abject collaboration with imperialism clothed in crass hypocrisy is baked into the bones of the Irish bourgeoisie.

Ireland – chronic dependency

The partition of Ireland took place in 1921 and in 1922 the 26 counties in the south of Ireland were declared the Irish Free State, a more-independent dominion within the British Commonwealth, while the six counties in the north of Ireland remained under direct British colonial rule as part of the United Kingdom.

The newly emerged Irish so-called Free State was a small and weak nation. It had been ravaged by over 700 years of British colonial rule, developed as an agricultural nation dependent on exporting cheap raw materials to and importing manufactured goods and other industrial products from Britain. Its main industry, in shipbuilding and textiles, was concentrated in the north of Ireland. In the Irish War of Liberation 1920-1921 socialist forces were severely weakened and the subsequent Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921 kept Ireland tied to the economic and military interests of Britain while Britain retained direct control of Ireland’s industrial base in the north.

The Irish ‘Free State’ became just as the revolutionary socialist James Connolly had warned in 1897, when he wrote in his 1897 Socialism and Nationalism:

“If you remove the English army tomorrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin castle, unless you set about the organisation of the Socialist Republic your efforts would be in vain. England would still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercial and individualist institutions she has planted in this country.”

Britain’s domination of the Irish economy continued for the next 50 years.

After Ireland joined the European Union in 1973 it re-modelled itself as a base for pharmaceutical multinationals, particularly those from the US, offering entry into the EU market and loopholes for companies to pay very little to no tax. However, its dependence on trade with Britain remained dominant. Things started to change in the 1990s, with the introduction of the Single European Market in 1993, the rapid growth of the US’ high-tech sector in the mid-1990s and Ireland’s considerably low tax rate. US foreign direct investment poured into the country. US tech giants moved their operations to Ireland, US-big pharma expanded their operations and by 2008 Ireland’s exports to the US had overtaken its exports to Britain.

Offshore manufacturing centre for US

Ireland’s economic transformation from an agricultural nation to one of the wealthiest nations in the EU by GDP has been entirely dependent on US foreign direct investment. Though the GDP figures massively inflate the actual investment going into the country, it is still true that the Irish economy is kept afloat by operating as an offshore manufacturing centre for US pharmaceutical multinationals and by US tech corporations paying tax in Ireland to avoid paying more tax elsewhere.

In 2021 food, chemical and pharmaceuticals accounted for 74% of all production in Ireland with an aggregate net selling value of €98.3bn. The pharmaceutical sector alone reported almost 60% of this value. Of the approximately 50,000 workers employed in the 90 pharmaceutical companies in Ireland, around 30,000 of these are employed in US companies. Tens of thousands more jobs are supported by the sector. In 2023, 28% of Ireland’s total goods exports were sold to the US for €54bn and around €36bn of these sales were related to pharmaceuticals and chemicals. This shows how reliant Ireland’s productive base is on US pharmaceutical giants operating there. Further, in 2024 none of the top five performing companies in Ireland by revenue were Irish companies. They were all US-tech multinationals: Apple, Google, Microsoft Operations, Accenture and Microsoft Investments. Almost 60% of Ireland’s corporate tax revenue comes from just ten US companies.

Ireland will not do anything that could affect US investment in Ireland. Ireland does not check US planes on Irish soil for kidnapped detainees, not check those planes for ammunition being transported to Israel or pass any legislation that could antagonise the US and its corporations that constitute the basis of the Irish economy.

The myth of Irish neutrality

In 1922 the newly formed Irish Free State declared itself to be militarily ‘neutral’ and when the 26-county-state officially became the Republic of Ireland in 1957, it kept its policy of ‘neutrality’. What ‘neutral’ means has been subject to much debate, but can be summarised by historian Trevor Salmon’s assertion that “the so-called policy of traditional neutrality turns out on examination to be, not so much principled neutrality as unprincipled non-belligerency” (Unneutral Ireland: an ambivalent and unique security policy, 1989, p8).

From the beginning of the Free State’s existence, it subordinated Irish sovereignty to British economic and security concerns. Britain still controlled part of Ireland and the 1922 Free State constitution limited the new state in building its own independent military and stipulated that Ireland must depend on the British military for defence and that the British military must be granted access to Irish territory. The idea that Ireland was in any way ‘neutral’ was further undermined during the Second World War when Ireland supported the Allied Forces, and ever since then as it has demonstrated ideological allegiance to NATO.

This was summarised by then-Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Sean Lemass in 1962. When answering a journalist’s question on Ireland’s position towards NATO, he responded ‘we do not wish, in the conflict between free democracies and the communist empires, to be thought of as neutral’. Ireland has continued to advance that position through alignment with NATO and especially with the US. Ireland has:

• Allowed US warplanes to dock in Shannon airport in County Limerick during the first Gulf War in 1990 and in every major imperialist war since.
• Allowed Shannon airport to be used as a stop-off point for extraordinary rendition flights. These were US flights post-9/11 in which detainees were abducted, transported without legal process and brought to undisclosed locations around the world, where they were then interrogated, tortured and abused. The Irish government refused to inspect US planes, saying it had received assurances from the US government that flights docking in Ireland were not carrying victims of extraordinary rendition and they were satisfied with those assurances. It was later shown, as everybody already knew, that extraordinary rendition flights were indeed landing in Shannon.
• Recognised the US-stooge Juan Guiado as interim President in Venezuela in 2019 over the democratically elected President Nicolas Maduro, in line with western imperialism’s attempts to overthrow the Bolivarian Revolution.
• Provided €122m in non-lethal aid to Ukraine following Russia’s invasion in February 2022.
• As a member of the European Union, it implements the EU’s sanctions against countries such as Iran, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Syria.

Ireland and Palestine

The people of Ireland and Palestine can draw on similar histories of settler-colonial states being set up in their territories by invading nations to remove the nationalist populations and advance imperialist interests. The Black and Tans, a brutal British auxiliary police force, that were sent to slaughter Irish nationalists in the 1920-21 Liberation War were in 1922 sent to apply the same terror methods in Palestine. There is a general consensus of solidarity with Palestine among the Irish people, which the Irish state benefits from while continuing to aid arms shipments to and investment in Israel.

In December 2024 Israel chose to close its embassy in Dublin after Ireland recognised the Palestinian state and supported South Africa’s petition at the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide. This was widely framed as though the Irish state kicked the Israeli ambassador out. In fact, following Israel’s decision to leave, Irish Taoiseach Michael Martin called the decision “deeply regrettable’ and reiterated that “Ireland wants a two-state solution and for Israel and Palestine to live in peace”. Calls for a two-state solution are premised on the continued existence of the state of Israel and acceptance of the forced expulsion of Palestinians from their homes and lands. The recognition of the Palestinian state is used as a basis to advance this position and undermine revolutionary Palestinian liberation.

On May 28 2025, the Irish government was widely praised internationally for backing a bill calling for a ban on imports from illegal Israeli settlements. Since 2018 the government has consistently “effectively blocked”, as then-Foreign Minister Simon Coveney boasted on a trip to Israel in 2019, a similar bill from being passed. The US ambassador to Ireland had threatened that continued US investment in Ireland could be harmed if Ireland implemented an “unsanctioned foreign boycott”, demonstrating the farce of Irish political sovereignty.

In 2024, while Israel bombed hospitals and committed massacre after massacre of the Palestinian people, Ireland imported €3.83bn worth of goods and services from Israel, second only to the US. €3bn of these goods were Israeli electronic integrated circuits, crucial components for the pharmaceutical and tech manufacturing sectors dominated by US companies.

The Irish cabinet finally backed the Occupied Territories Bill (OTB) only when the global isolation of Israel intensified to such a scale that even its most ardent backers began turning on the Netenyahu government, and only once the bill had been watered down. A couple of weeks later, on June 12, the government defeated a motion calling on it to stop the sale of Israeli war bonds. To be sold in the EU, bonds from non-EU countries must be approved by an EU country. Israel traditionally had Britain complete this process for it, but post-Brexit the Central Bank in Ireland has done the authorisations. Sales of these bonds are funding Israel’s genocide.

Moreover, in 2023 Ireland’s exports to Israel of ‘dual use’ goods – goods such as software and technology that can be used for military as well as civil purposes – increased exponentially from €11m to €70m. The Irish independent news outlet, The Ditch has revealed that the state-owned Irish Strategic Investment Fund continues to hold shares in Palantir, a US firm providing artificial intelligence technology that helps the Israeli military to select targets. The investigative journal has also revealed how Irish state authorities have assisted, and continue to assist, flights carrying F-35 combat jet parts to Israel Defence Forces (IDF) air bases through Irish territory. Shannon airport in County Limerick continues to be used as a stopping point for US warplanes to refuel on their journeys carrying munitions to Israel.

The Irish ruling class will resist any serious measures to stop the Israeli genocide. It will do nothing that might antagonise the United States and risk US companies continuing to prop up the Irish economy. The 26 County state of Ireland has never had economic or political sovereignty and that is still the case today. What steps Ireland has taken in support of the Palestinian people are victories of the Irish people, not the spirit of the Irish ruling class.