ABSTRACT
Ireland comes last in our trilogy of case studies for several reasons. 1 First and foremost, Ireland's position in post-war European development is the most remote of the three. In the early post-war period, Ireland remained at the margins of Europe, it did not join the ECSC, EEC or indeed EFTA; it rejected membership of the Atlantic Alliance and was refused early membership of the United Nations. This places Irish foreign policy at several steps removed from the experience of both The Netherlands and Denmark. Second, and reflecting this isolation, Irish foreign policy preoccupations of the period were highly localised. Finally, if The Netherlands can correctly be called the 'biggest of the small', Ireland might equally be dubbed 'the smallest of the minor'.
