The Blueshirts and the ‘Economic War’: A Study of Ireland in the Context of Dependency Theory

The article assesses the accuracy of certain propositions derived from dependency theory as descriptions of the Irish experience since independence in 1922. Particular attention is paid to the 1930s, when there was a lengthy financial dispute between Ireland and the United Kingdom which brought the economic links between the two countries under greater strain than before or since. The conclusions are that dependency theory does enable the analyst to locate the major sources of domestic opposition to such disputes—the interests most closely tied to the metropolis—and this does cast new light on Irish political divisions in the first decades of independence. But the theory is both ambiguous and unhelpful in analysing the origins of dependency, the limits on the action and power of the groupings in the satellite country, and the possibilities of economic development.