Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Hi there,
There is an issue with role permissions that is being worked on at the moment.
If you are having trouble with access or permissions on regional forums please post here to get access: https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058365403/you-do-not-have-permission-for-that#latest

was it a good idea for Ireland to remain neutral in world war II

  • 29-04-2013 3:22pm
    #1
    MRnotlob606
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,642 ✭✭✭


    was it a good idea for Ireland to remain neutral in world war II ? thoughts and opinions please?


Comments

  • #2
    summerskin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,760 ✭✭✭summerskin


    not again...


  • #3
    Anyone
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,376 ✭✭✭Anyone


    MRnotlob606 wrote: »
    was it a good idea for Ireland to remain neutral in world war II ? thoughts and opinions please?

    How about you start with your opinion. That way it doesnt look like we are doing your homework/assignment.


  • #4
    Clandestine
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,466 ✭✭✭Clandestine


    We got off pretty easy in WW2 so I'd say so?


  • #5
    Rented Mule
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,153 ✭✭✭Rented Mule


    Absolutely ...I hate to think of the war stories that would have been told in the pubs.


  • #6
    Gone Drinking
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,811 ✭✭✭Gone Drinking


    Hilter was a bad man doing a lot of bad things. I don't know why any country would have been neutral and not tried to help..


  • Advertisement
  • #7
    summerskin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,760 ✭✭✭summerskin


    thread will either get locked or....

    lots of republican nonsense about independence, british army, butchers aprons, london blitz v dresden bombings(which was worse),sure we're under german control now anyway, Wibbs enters and posts long but well thought out response that most people ignore, mod warnings ensue and then it gets locked eventually anyway.


  • #8
    syklops
    Closed Accounts Posts: 18,966 ✭✭✭✭syklops


    Ah this old chestnut again.


  • #9
    MRnotlob606
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,642 ✭✭✭MRnotlob606


    Anyone wrote: »
    How about you start with your opinion. That way it doesnt look like we are doing your homework/assignment.

    well id like to think it was good idea to remain neutral, although my grandfather was with fighting with the brits


  • #10
    phill106
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,826 ✭✭✭phill106


    Should be moved to the "was it a good idead for ireland to remain neutral in world war II" forum


  • #11
    questionmark?
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,078 ✭✭✭questionmark?


    We could have offered little or no resistance, New state not long after independence and a civil war with no funds and basically no army. The place would have been destroyed. Was better to offer some 'assistance' in the way we did.


  • Advertisement
  • #12
    Ush1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,482 ✭✭✭✭Ush1


    Ask Alan Shatter, turns out he speaks on our behalf.


  • #13
    thiarfearr
    Closed Accounts Posts: 199 ✭✭thiarfearr


    We should have joined in 1945 like the rest of the world, or even in 1943 once the yanks landed and we new we'd be on the winning side. Could have joined NATO and become a modern European country joining in the growth of the 50s, instead of stagnating under the dark cloak of the Church


  • #14
    FloatingVoter
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,133 ✭✭✭FloatingVoter


    Makes no difference, Germany won anyway.


  • #15
    Big Nasty
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 22,080 ✭✭✭✭Big Nasty


    No - it was a crying shame. A lot of army bases were turned in to race circuits or drag strips in the UK. Here we've got Mondello and fvck all else worth mentioning. :mad:


  • #16
    Duckworth_Luas
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,734 ✭✭✭Duckworth_Luas


    FloatingVoter wrote: »
    Makes no difference, Germany won anyway.
    LOL


  • #17
    orestes
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,972 ✭✭✭orestes


    Anyone wrote: »
    How about you start with your opinion. That way it doesnt look like we are doing your homework/assignment.

    I've never understood people using this place to do their school/college work.

    By the time you read all the replies here, filter out the nonsense, and edit the stuff you want to use into a coherent whole you could have actually done the paper yourself. I thought the point of cheating was to make less work for yourself?


  • #18
    Con Logue
    Closed Accounts Posts: 277 ✭✭Con Logue


    Clair Wills' book "That Neutral Island" and Robert Fisk's "In time of War" are the best books to read on the subject. Judgement on Ireland's neutrality is highly subjective but by the time anyone finishes those two books I think they will be well informed enough to form an intelligent opinion.

    I think it is important to distinguish between a view on neutrality informed by what we know about Nazism now after eighty years, and the perspective of the people who made the decision at the time. I personally think that we had no option at the time but to be neutral, however once the concentration camps became public knowledge we should have joined the Allies, if only for a brief time. DeValera's mathematical neutrality between the death of Roosevelt and the death of Hitler was morally wrong but he believed he held a higher ground than either.


  • #19
    Death and Taxes
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,775 ✭✭✭Death and Taxes


    MRnotlob606 wrote: »
    was it a good idea for Ireland to remain neutral in world war II ? thoughts and opinions please?

    No it was a disgraceful act and one that will forever be stain a stain on this nations history.


  • #20
    Raging_Ninja
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,717 ✭✭✭Raging_Ninja


    Why should our grandads have to die in the last gasp of imperial europe?


  • #21
    Gi joe!
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 271 ✭✭Gi joe!


    Hmm, stay out of the war and be more or less left alone by the Germans, or offer a helping end and end up getting the sh1t bombed out of us.

    Yep, think we made the right choice. :)


  • Advertisement
  • #22
    Chuck Stone
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,030 ✭✭✭✭Chuck Stone


    We were neutral for the Allies. Lots of Irishmen fought with the Commonwealth Troops.

    I'd say we played it smart. I'm sure Dublin would have been routinely bombed had we declared for the allies.


  • #23
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    Gi joe! wrote: »
    Hmm, stay out of the war and be more or less left alone by the Germans, or offer a helping end and end up getting the sh1t bombed out of us.

    Not exactly the sh1te bombed out of us, but a long way short of being left alone.


  • #24
    MRnotlob606
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,642 ✭✭✭MRnotlob606


    i suppose at the time the memory and hatred towards john bull was still poignant , this may have been the primary reason why many irishmen didnt want to fight along side them


  • #25
    thiarfearr
    Closed Accounts Posts: 199 ✭✭thiarfearr


    Chuck Stone wrote: »
    We were neutral for the Allies. Lots of Irishmen fought with the Commonwealth Troops.

    I'd say we played it smart. I'm sure Dublin would have been routinely bombed had we declared for the allies.

    If we played it smart we would have joined the war in 1945 when there was no threat


  • #26
    An Coilean
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,285 ✭✭✭An Coilean


    Do your own homework!


  • #27
    MRnotlob606
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,642 ✭✭✭MRnotlob606


    An Coilean wrote: »
    Do your own homework!

    this had nothing to do with homework or any assessments whatsoever.


  • #28
    alastair
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,309 ✭✭✭✭alastair


    Our position looks a little better when you consider we had pretty much the same stance as the USA - which endures a fraction of the tut-tutting about their policy on fighting facism. Both we and the US had a policy of 'neutral unless attacked', both we and the US had an active, if quiet, role in ensuring the Allies got a helping hand over the Germans, and neither of our governments had any sort of democratic mandate to go to war on behalf of the allies (before self defence arguments kicked in). We just didn't have a Pearl Harbour.


  • #29
    BlatentCheek
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 329 ✭✭BlatentCheek


    It made sense at the time to stay neutral. people bemoaning it as a poor moral decision don't know what they're talking about; no one enters war with a great power unless their vital interests are threatened and ours weren't.

    With hindsight it's less clear that it was the right choice. Joining in on the Allies side when it was clear that they'd win and the Luftwaffe could no longer do too much damage, say 1943, would have served us well.


Advertisement