Abstract
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Recently declassified war plans reveal the Irish Army preparing a conventional defence against expected British invasion in 1940-41. Irish Army planners realized such a defence would have been suicidal in the face of overwhelming British military superiority, yet they rejected the obvious alternative of preparing a defence which incorporated their operational experience of guerrilla warfare from the Anglo-Irish War of 1919-21. This was because in building a professional organization in the 1920s and 1930s, Army leaders formed beliefs about military professionalism by imitating the British Army. This, in turn, led them to believe that guerrilla warfare was not the business of professional armies.