After Ireland was occupied by the British Army, they resisted, fought a war, negotiated peace. They agreed to give up 1/4 of the country, to stop the war and to guarantee freedom for the majority.
This has always been controversial, but most people then thought it was the right decision, as do most petiole now.
There are lots of differences between Irish and Ukrainian history. But even so, I think the Irish have a unique insight into their dilemma.
One obvious answer is to say they should negotiate and give up one defensible port city, or that the Irish should not have given away any part of Ireland, or that there is nothing to be learnt from the parallel.
Generations of Irish intellectuals have wrestled this question. We have a shared experience from living with the fallout of this decision. Maybe there is some useful insight that the Irish can share. Any ideas?
I’m not Irish, but there’s quite a few things that are not similar in those parallels. That is, if you’re talking about the Anglo-Irish war of 1919-1921.
1st) Irish didn’t have the support they needed. Ukrainians have both EU and US trying to make sure Russia comes out of it with as much resistance and casualties as possible. At the same time, giving up part of the country is a lose-lose for Ukrainians since they’d have lost part of the country and also be in a century long debt to NATO and EU for the support they have taken already. I don’t think anyone expects that those 80+ billion the NATO has spent already is going to be a gift. They will absolutely milk Ukraine for that after the war is over.
2nd) There were about 1200ish casualties total. Nowhere near the extend of the Ukrainian-Russian war.
3rd) It was a war of independence. IRA wanted to liberate Ireland from the British, Didn’t try to stop them from occupying Ireland. They won, even if they lost 1/4th of the country in the negotiations. If Ukraine negotiates a part of it becoming Russian, they lose in the eyes of almost everyone and renders all the dead and the destruction and the sacrifices useless, since that’s what Putin wanted at the start. Of course things changed down the line, but they could have agreed the first week to give up Donbas and avoid it all.
I could go on with the differences here.
Yes the Irish had no option to avoid war, to negotiate a deal instead.
The more I think about this, it’s probably status quo bias. If the Irish had fought more years and won the while island, people would have said they were right to do so. If Ukraine had negotiated a peace early on people would have said they were right. If they fight for years until the country is rubble people with say that is right too.
One key thing was the Irish guaranteed the UK access to its ports. The UK was willing to fight for the shipping industry in Belfast and for the important ports. It was happy to give away the rest of the country. Everyone got what they wanted and the war ended (if I may ignore some huge details)
I think Russia is in the same position. It had always had access to Ukraine’s ports. The threat if losing that access is worth going to war for. If Ukraine signed something guaranteeing Russia access to its ports, Russia would have no need to keep fighting. But while Ukraine refuses to talk, we will never find out.
Maybe that is the thing the Ukrainians need to learn from history.