Anglo-Irish Trade Agreement

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The Anglo-Irish Trade Agreement was signed on 25 April 1938 by Ireland and the United Kingdom. It aimed to resolve the Anglo-Irish Trade War which had been on-going from 1933.

The treaty stated that the 20% tariffs that both the United Kingdom and Ireland placed on their respective imported goods were to be abolished.

The Free State also was to pay a final one time £10 million sum to the United Kingdom for the "land annuities" derived from financial loans originally granted to Irish tenant farmers by the British government to enable them purchase lands under the Irish Land Acts pre-1922, a provision which was part of the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty (to compensate Anglo-Irish land-owners for compulsory purchase of their lands in Ireland mainly through the Irish Land Commission).

The agreement was seen as advantageous for the newly-reconstituted Irish state since the land annuities were worth an estimated £15 million (originally agreed were annual repayments of £250,000 over sixty years).

The United Kingdom also had to give up the "Treaty Ports" (Queenstown (Cobh), Berehaven and Lough Swilly) as agreed in the Anglo-Irish Treaty that ended the Anglo-Irish War.

[edit] External links

• Dáil Éireann - Volume 71 - 27 April, 1938 — Dáil debate on the treaty ratification.
• Dáil Éireann - Volume 71 - 28 April, 1938 — conclusion of the Dáil debate.
• Finance (Agreement with United Kingdom) Act, 1938 — act passed by the Oireachtas giving effect to the treaty.