President of Ireland Michael D. Higgins at the 4/10 memorial service, ca. 2021
Although among the least effected nations by 4/10, receiving only one strike and having a death toll estimated to be in the low to mid ten thousands, the psychological impact on Ireland as a result of 4/10 was immense. It was the only nation that received a nuclear strike that wasn't a party in the Second Russian Civil War, a part of the former USSR, a member of NATO, or a host of US military bases. Many had assumed that its long-standing policy of military neutrality would spare the country, including Taoiseach John Bruton, but these assumptions would be completely destroyed along with Shannon Airport by a Russian missile. In the days following the blast, the entirety of the counties of Limerick and Clare, as well as portions of Tipperary, Kerry, and Galway, would be completely evacuated due to the fear of radioactive fallout, and although these fears did not come to pass due to the height at which the missile detonated, many chose to stay in their adopted homes elsewhere in the country, with Wexford and Wicklow in particular receiving massive increases in their population.
As a result of the Shannon Strike and its aftermath , the ruling Fine Gael-Labour-Democratic Left coalition government would be heavily defeated in the 1997 general election by a resurgent Fianna Fáil lead by Bertie Ahern in a campaign that mainly focused on the failure of the previous government to protect Ireland from a nuclear attack, and for Ireland to join the NATO alliance, both to ensure that the state would be better protected, and as a sweetener to the Unionist community in Northern Ireland for any potential reunification proposal. This came to a head in November 2004, after a referendum on NATO membership was passed by over 70% of the electorate that May, with Ireland formally joining NATO along with Albania. Turkey, however, threw a spanner in the works by initially refusing to ratify Ireland membership bid, citing alleged Irish support for the PKK and Ireland's condemnation of the Turkish occupation of both the former Iraqi Kurdistan and of Northern Cyprus, although an impassioned speech by the then President Mary MacAleese citing the human and psychological trauma that both Ireland and Turkey faced on 4/10 swayed enough in the Grand National Assembly to barely ratify Ireland's membership bid.
Today in Ireland, many remember 4/10 as the day Irish neutrality died, but for those from Clare and Limerick, the memories are instead of those of a mushroom cloud rising over the Shannon, and of the forced evacuations that followed. Even nearly 30 years later, many those that were evacuated have refused to return, citing the trauma of seeing the mushroom cloud, or in the case of Clare, being the very target of the bomb. Limerick City in particular has seen a demographic crash, with the city today being only home to some 35 thousand people, with the county as a whole only being home to barely over 100 thousand. Clare has seen a similar situation, with only 60 thousand residents.