Life
1898-1983; b. Camlough, Co. Armagh, 13 Feb.; ed. Newry CBS; joined Irish
Volunteers, 1913, and Gaelic League, 1914; Sinn Féin organiser,
S. Armagh; commandant 4th Northern Div. IRA in 1921; opposed Treaty, sought
neutrality, but afterwards fought against Provisional Govt.; succeeded
Liam Lynch as chief of staff in April 1923; ordered cease fire and ‘dump
arms’, 24 May 1923; abstentionist MP Louth, 1923; founder member
of Fianna Fáil and close associate of Eamon de Valera; Minister of Defence,
1932-39; Min. for Co-ordination of Defensive Measures, 1939-45, with authority
to impose censorship supporting neutrality; Min. of Finance, 1945-48; Min. of External
Affairs, 1951-54; voted independently of American lead for discussion
of Chinese admission to the United Nations, 1958; appt. Tanaiste, 1965-69, retiring
to back benches afterwards; took independent stance for small nations at UN; retired
from Dáil 1973; suffered death of wife in road accident, 1978; d. 18 May. DIB
ODNB DIH DUB
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Criticism
Dorothy Barlow, ‘Aiken’s Mission to the United States in 1941: An Interpretation’,
in Études Irlandaises, XIX-I (Printemps), pp.121-138; Donal
Ó Drisceoil, ‘“Moral Neutrality”: Censorship in Emergency
Ireland’, in Irish Studies Review (Summer 1996), pp.46-50.
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Commentary
Joe Carroll, ‘Hear no Evil, See No Evil, Speak ...’, in The Irish Times (Wed. 26 Jan. 2005), p.15: ‘When I interviewed Aiken years later for my book on Irish neutrality, he brushed aisde the charge that he prevented the Irish public from judging which side was in the right [in World War II] by suppressing reports of German and Japanese atrocities. “One side was as bad as the other”, he said. [...] Even when Irish priests were the victims of Japanese atrocities in the Phillipines, Aiken and his censors stuck rigidly to their rules to the rage of the US Ambassador in Dublin, David Gray. [..] It was understandable that the government of a neutral country would wnat some control over the flow of news from countries at war and to filter out the propaganda and lies. But Aiken wanted to go much further and ban expressions of opinion. There whould be no debate allowed on the merits of the conflict, he told his censors. [...] Attempts were made in the Dáil and Seanad by the few pro-Allied members such as James Dillon and Frank MacDermot to debate the more ludicrous examples of the censorship. Aiken would concede nothing. “By and large we operate this censorship to keep the temperature down internally and to prevent it from rising between ourselves and other countries.” One exception to the rule against criticising the belligerent powers was Northern Ireland. The censors could allow “non-violent” criticism of the British and Northern Ireland governments over partition and the internment of Republicans. [...] The Irish Press had tols its readers in April 1943: “There is no kind of oppression visited on any minority in Europe which the Six-County nationalists have not also endured.” / The historian J. J. Lee has commented drily that “This was a revelation that would no doubt have helped the victims lining up for the Auschwitz gas chambers [i]f only circumstances had permitted them to gratefully clutch their copies of the “Truth in the News”.’
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