Spike Island

 John B put on another outing to De Valeras Ireland in the 1940s. This game covered the contingency plan the British formulated to sieze back the Treaty Ports ceded to Eire in 1938 in order to aid the Battle of the Atlantic. The game covered the situation from April 1941 after the assumed British military operation, until December 1941, the point at which the USA entered the war.

For those unaware, after the Irish Civil War, Britain retained three naval bases in the Irish Free State (shown on the map above) These were returned to Ireland in 1938, but as the Battle of the Atlantic turned against Britain in 1941, the Royal Navy desperately needed the bases in Ireland to extend coverage of the Atlantic convoys. Our previous game covered the diplomatic efforts to open the bases up while De Valera intransigently, insisted on strict neutrality, even though those convoys were keeping Ireland supplied too.

In this scenario, Churchill has lost patience, and Commandos have recaptured the ports. 

The game was run as a matrix game, I was Harold MacMillan, Minister for Ireland, Pete was Montgomery, in charge of the port garrisons (49 West Riding Div),  John was De Valeria, Russell the IRA and Tim the Archbishop of Ireland. A sixth player would have been the Ulster Unionists.

I was tasked with reaching a rapprochement with the Irish government and preventing an escalation of hostilities. We started off by dangling various inducements - extra food convoys, joint garrisoning of the ports etc but these were all rejected out of hand and although the Irish were in no state to confront the UK militarily, De Valera let all the IRA internees out of prison and before you knew it, the Irish Civil War had resumed.

Oh dear. Hostilities escalated very rapidly indeed, and eventually the USA told Churchill to withdraw, which we did, instead occupying Iceland in a joint US-UK venture. I was heroically wounded having survived an IRA assassination attempt, and resigned my post, hoping for a quiet death in some doomed operation to redeem my reputation.

What a catastrophe, I reckon that put the Good Friday Agreement back by two centuries. At least we got to look at this very pretty 1940s map of Ireland.

I'm very glad Churchill didn't go ahead with his reckless scheme in 1941, and my most heartfelt sympathy goes out to those politicians who have had to deal with the Irish situation in the last 100 years. I really don't know how Mo Mowlam did it.