ABSTRACT
The subject of international relations presents some difficulties in the Irish case. Today Ireland is a sovereign state and has an international presence like that of any other small nation. For example, it has diplomatic relations with 107 countries and has over 40 embassies throughout the world, comprising around 340 officials and 300 locally recruited staff. It also has a seat in the United Nations and is a member state of the European Union. Northern Ireland, on the other hand, is a region of the UK and foreign policy remains the responsibility of Her Majesty’s Government in London. Recently, international relations came to mean something different in Northern Ireland. There the ‘internationalization’ of the Troubles was either the extent to which paramilitary campaigns drew upon external sources for arms, such as Libyan support for the IRA, or the extent to which external support was sought for a political settlement, such as American involvement in the peace process of the 1990s. After 1921 the Irish state sought to confirm its separate identity from the United Kingdom (UK). By contrast, the Unionist government in Northern Ireland sought to confirm its place in the UK. The partition or border issue dominated relationships between Belfast and Dublin and between Dublin and London. On the one hand, the Irish state has never accepted that Northern Ireland is entirely foreign, even though it has been the External or Foreign Affairs Minister who has normally dealt with the issue. On the other hand, the Irish state’s foreign policy has been significantly influenced by the Northern Ireland question.
