'Volume IX' of 'Documents on Irish Foreign Policy' brings together for the first time the entire spectrum of Ireland's foreign relations between 1948 and 1951. It covers Ireland's role as a founder member of the Council of Europe in 1949 and the state's response to the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1950 – the origins of today's EU. It details Ireland's refusal to join NATO. The Korean War (1950-53) forms a large component of the volume which sees Ireland's foreign relations take a wider perspective and its network of overseas missions grow. This is despite the paradox that outside the UN, NATO and the Commonwealth, the avenues for multilateral action by Ireland in the international system were more limited in 1951 than they had been in 1948.