Revealed: Athlone and Moate’s key roles in event of nuclear attack

It looked like a scene from a bad sci-fi movie. On Russian state television, at the beginning of May, a clip was shown which mimicked a nuclear attack being launched somewhere off the coast of Donegal.

The pro-Kremlin presenter of the clip, Dmitry Kiselyov, stated matter-of-factly that such an explosion would be so destructive to Ireland and the UK it "would turn what might be left of them into a radioactive desert."

While there was bemusement in some quarters at the notion of Ireland suddenly being reduced to nuclear dust, Fine Gael TD Neale Richmond took the broadcast seriously enough to tweet that the "blatant threats against Ireland" on Russian state media ought to result in the Russian Ambassador being expelled from this country.

Fianna Fáil MEP Billy Kelleher also said the Government should convey its "absolute disgust at these threats to Ireland," adding that the "wild language" used was completely unacceptable.

The incident revived memories of another period of nuclear uncertainty, during the Cold War in the 1960s, when the Government began to draw up plans for responding to a potential attack on Dublin.

What might not be widely known is that Athlone and Moate were both identified at that time as key sites for the Government to use when directing its response to such an attack.

The State's only nuclear bunker, formally termed the Integrated National Control Centre, was established in Athlone's Custume Barracks.

Moate's Carmelite College, meanwhile, was proposed as the location where the Houses of the Oireachtas might sit if the Government had to decamp from the capital.

Secret Government documents from the 1960s, which were shared with the Westmeath Independent with the permission of the Director of the National Archives, helped to shed more light on the State's plans for Westmeath bases if catastrophe struck.

A Department of Defence report to the Taoiseach's office, dated December 23, 1966, explained that civil and military Defence officers had inspected the ground floor and basement of the "New Billet Block" in Custume Barracks and found it suitable for adaptation as "an Integrated National Control Centre to meet requirements which might arise in a future emergency."

The report cited the barracks' proximity to "the most powerful Radio Éireann transmitter" in Moydrum as one of the reasons for setting up the bunker in Athlone.

Disadvantages of the location which were cited included the fact that Athlone was "a poor road communications centre restricted by the bottleneck of the bridge."

Another issue was the distance from Dublin, which "might be too great in circumstances where Dublin would not be destroyed and road communications with the city were essential."

Nevertheless, the report concluded that the establishment of the bunker or command centre in Athlone was "desirable" and should be done as soon as possible.

Another Defence memo in late 1966 said the cost of adapting the bunker in Custume Barracks for use as a national control centre would be £30,000 – much less than the £100,000 cost of a purpose-built centre.

The memo said the Billet Block was "not what might be termed 'ideal' for use as a control centre" because it was "vulnerable to blast, but this was a matter of degree depending on the type of bomb, its size, and where it exploded."

The bunker in Athlone was not expected to "stand up to direct nuclear strike" but rather to protect against "the likeliest hazard, namely radioactive fall-out," according to the State documents.

The control centre or bunker was duly created. A follow-up report to the Department of Defence, in February 1969, stated that structural work on it was "well advanced" by then.

It said that once the installation of "the necessary communications and studio equipment" was completed it would leave "8,000 sq ft of suitable accommodation available, which would provide minimal facilities for a skeleton Integrated National Control."

The suggestion that Moate's Carmelite College could be used to house sittings of the Dáil and Seanad during an emergency was made in a report dated March 21, 1967.

According to the report, the suggestion came from Mr L. P. Browne, Principal Clerk at the Office of the Houses of the Oireachtas, during discussions about an alternative site for the Oireachtas "in the event of a nuclear attack on this country, or an attack on a neighbouring country involving the probability of fall-out here."

During the discussions it was agreed that an alternative meeting place for the Oireachtas may be needed somewhere between Athlone and Dublin.

"Mr Browne suggested Moate, Co Westmeath, where there is a large college run by the Carmelite Order which - he thought - would have the necessary facilities for meetings, catering, etc," the report said.

Moate resident Dr John Gibney, who is Assistant Editor of the Documents on Irish Foreign Policy project at the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin, said these State documents were essentially about precautions in the event of nuclear war.

"Ireland was militarily neutral during the Cold War, but it was obvious that we would be seen as being aligned with the West in the event of a conflict between the US and Soviet Union and so could become a target of the Soviets," said Dr Gibney.

He said a map (pictured above) on file in the National Archives showed "the likely impact of a nuclear weapon on Dublin and its hinterland, which pretty much explains why the Government might want to decamp to Westmeath."

On the question of why the Soviets might attack Ireland, he referred to a quote from Sean Lemass in Dublin in 1962: "We do not wish in the conflict between the free democracies and the Communist empires to be thought of as neutral. We are not neutral and do not wish to be regarded as such," Lemass said.

Documents on Irish Foreign Policy (www.difp.ie) is a public history project in partnership between the Royal Irish Academy, the National Archives and the Department of Foreign Affairs.

It publishes archival material relating to Irish foreign policy since 1919, and the documents cited above were found during work on its current volume: Documents on Irish Foreign Policy, Vol. XIII: 1965-1969, which will be published by the Royal Irish Academy later this year.