Editing Seán Lemass (section)

===Foreign policy===
{{more citations needed section|date=December 2012}}
The Lemass era saw some significant developments in Irish foreign policy. [[Frank Aiken]] served as [[Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade|Minister for External Affairs]] during the whole of Lemass's tenure as Taoiseach. At the [[United Nations]], Aiken took an independent stance and backed the admission of [[People's Republic of China|China]] to the organisation, in spite of huge protests from the United States. Admitted only in 1955, Ireland played a large role at the UN, serving on the [[United Nations Security Council|Security Council]] in 1962, condemning Chinese aggression in [[Tibet]] and advocating nuclear arms limitation. One of the main areas of foreign policy which emerged during the Lemass years was a debate{{Clarify|date=April 2009}} over [[Irish neutrality|Ireland's neutrality]], a debate that has never been formally resolved, with the de facto policy being to avoid joining military engagements or alliances without neutrality as it's traditionally understood.{{Citation needed|date=January 2024}}

Lemass was always sceptical about remaining neutral, particularly if Ireland were to join the [[European Economic Community]]. Aiken was much more in favour of a neutral, independent stance. In 1960, [[Irish Army|Irish troops]] embarked on their first peace-keeping mission in the First Republic of the [[Democratic Republic of the Congo|Congo]]. Nine soldiers were killed during this mission.{{Citation needed|date=January 2024}}

While Aiken was at the UN, Lemass played a major role in pressing for Ireland's membership of the EEC which in many ways became the chief foreign policy consideration during the 1960s.<ref>{{cite book|first=Michael J.|last=Geary|title=An Inconvenient Wait: Ireland's Quest for Membership of the EEC, 1957–73|location=Dublin|publisher=Institute for Public Administration|date=2009|chapter=Chapters 1–2}}</ref>