Memorandum from Joseph P. Walshe to General Peadar MacMahon (Dublin)
(P22) (Secret)

I am directed by the Minister for External Affairs to refer to your minute (S/255) of the 11th January,¹ relative to the decision of the Cabinet Committee on Emergency Problems in regard to certain 'forms of notification' affecting your Department.²

I am to state that the list of matters requiring notifications appended to your minute has been examined in this Department which offers the following observations for your Minister's consideration.

In the first place, it is suggested generally that, as all the notifications indicated in your list will require to be addressed to countries with which normal postal communication no longer exists, both secrecy and expedition demand that they should be conveyed by code telegram to the appropriate diplomatic representatives abroad. In order to guard against the possibility of this country's telegraphic channels being suspended or terminated at the outbreak of hostilities, it is strongly urged that all the notifications to be formally made by Irish representatives to foreign Governments in a certain eventuality should be wired to the former as soon as may be possible. The representatives concerned would be relied upon to fill in such missing details as cannot be furnished prior to the actual occurrence of the eventuality.

If this general suggestion commends itself to the Minister for Defence and is subsequently approved by the Cabinet Committee, no need will arise for complete drafts of the proposed notifications. Each representative abroad will submit the substance of the notification to be made by him in the diplomatic form which he usually adopts when addressing the Government to which he is accredited. In most cases, he will merely have to draw up a suitable covering letter with which he will forward the material (Regulations, Emergency Powers Orders, Army Orders etc.) supplied by the Department of Defence.

It is observed that your Department intend to forward in a short time, for the approval of the Minister for External Affairs, draft regulations which are being made, for the purpose of implementing the Prisoners of War Convention, 1929. When these are finally settled, it is thought that they might be wired textually to the Chargé d'Affaires at Berne for communication to the Geneva Red Cross authorities when the need arises.

With regard to the question of the uniform to be worn, (and the organisation as a whole) of the Local Defence Force, similar action could be taken, although it is felt that the better course might be to first publish a list of the distinguishing badges etc. in one definitely official document which could be made directly available at once to all potential enemies.

The foregoing remarks apply to 'Notifications' Nos. 2, 4 and 5 on your list. Of the two outstanding items, the first (No.1) is being dealt with as described below while notification No. 3 pursuant to Article 10 of the Red Cross Convention, 1929, is being made immediately as a peacetime measure in accordance with your Department's suggestion.

The first notification mentioned in your list will require a relatively elaborate draft to be submitted, when ready, to the Cabinet Committee. It is proposed that it should take the form of a Note relating the circumstances of an attack on Irish territory, and asserting Ireland's constant adherence to strict neutrality and the intention of her people to resist the aggressor.³ It will probably conclude with an appeal for neutral sympathy and support.

The Minister is advised that the legal effect of such a Note as is being prepared, will be to render unnecessary any more specifically technical notification under Article 2 of the Hague Convention relative to the Opening of Hostilities.