If being an unaligned country with a large army is no deterrent to Putin's ambitions is it time for ROI to join Nato?
Again hindsight is wonderful.
At the time, nobody knew how the war would proceed.
You remind me of that great line from a spoof on unresearched and trite bad films - 'Tell mom I am off to fight in the 100 Year War', uttered by a soldier blessed with great foresight as to how long the war would last.
Which bit of - "Invading Ireland was neither seriously considered nor necessary, so this article has to be taken as speculative." - from the Churchill archives in your own link did you not understand?
No it didn't, you depending on hindsight contradicted it. Hindsight blanch, not much good at the time sadly.
The stuff about enshrining neutrality in the Constitution is just complete and utter nonsense.
If we wish to join NATO or an EU Defence Force, it will require a referendum because of the case law on sovereignty started by Crotty.
You can pursue a general policy of neutrality and promoting peace, working for disarmament, while also pledging to support others if attacked. That is a form of neutrality.
As I understand it, and it is incredibly hard to decipher, underneath the many contradictions, Francie's fanciful thesis, essentially suggests that the Germans would have ignored London, flown over Wales, and bombed the sh!t out of Ireland. Therefore De Valera was justified in chickening out of the war.
I would be careful in responding to his notions though, he has already made clear ("It funny how triggered you and mark get about this stuff. Really really funny.") that he is amused at how he can trigger responses from you and I, so he may not be engaged in serious debate.
The only source you produced contradicted you, so I won't be pinning any faith on your "research".
Mark would give a future government the right to send troops aggressively into the north. Opps mark!
Dont mention the Triple Lock with Francie. He will be arguing that we need it incase we go crazy and invade some random country.
Francie actually WANTS the Brits to have a veto over Irish defence policy. He gets very confused about it all.
So go on, explain it, who would have destroyed the country Francie?
The constitution does tie individual governments hands. It is the people's safe guard so to speak.
Think you know well I was referring to the specific area under discussion, and not others as regards the Constitution tying govt.'s hands in a future crisis.
(e.g. say UN triple lock idea were written in stone there as a result of a Yes vote in a "neutrality" referendum)
the southern unionists need to deal with the fact they lost and will continue to lose.
ireland decided to forge it's own path and that path while having some very serious issues such as the reign of the catholic church which was a disgraceful chapter in our history, has lead to a successful and prosperous country.
is it perfect? no, but it's very clear going on northern ireland that if we had remained part of britain or allied to britain as close as southern unionists would like we would be no where near as developed as we are.
we were right not to get involved in WWII and it served us well, we were never guaranteed to get enough martial plan money anyway if we did, or even any at all, and there is no guarantee it wouldn't have been funeled through britain who squandered it all anyway.
our path has been proven to have been correct, yes we do still have some issues in terms of following britain in terms of some policies but we are moving away from that slowly but surely but not quick enough.
Ha ha, you even left out words there to dig a little deeper. You never seem to know when to back off the self embarrassing pedal. Gas man TBH. Here is the sentence again.
In Dev's case, while I think he held the country back in many respects, his bravery in facing down UK and American pressure in WW2 ensured that a fledgling country wasn't destroyed as collateral damage.
Then perhaps rephrase your point then? How would the Americans and Brits lead to Ireland being destroyed?
Why bother with a constitution at all seems to be your ultimate logic. 'Constitutions' constrain rash governments decisions.
Technically they are incompatible.
However, something like the Swedish model, in which the Swedes modified their military processes for full NATO compatibility with an eye to integrated operations if necessary, could theoretically work. It seems to have been accepted by most everyone that Sweden did not expect its neutrality to actively shield itself and that it would be dragged into any European war.
Well I'm sure it would be hard fought and of course, those in favour could win.
Would need to see what wording is obviously but to me seems a Constitution that ties down all future govt.s estentially indefinitely (e.g. if it requires, for example, a UN mandate before Ireland can use force other than in own defence, or give any military aid to others that are involved a war) is a very bad idea.
If govt. think we should join NATO I assume there will be a vote held on taking that step, similarly if some new EU "common defence" stuff emerges due to the Ukraine invasion that requires some other changes to the Constitution.
No, I wasn't there blanch but once again I have done the research and looked at primary sources and what was being said. What if this was said during Brexit or in the current row over the Protocol by a British cabinet minister - would it be seen as a threat to forcefully make us do something?
“The time has come to make it clear to the Irish government that we must have the use of these harbours, and intend in any case to use them,”
That was the 1st Lord of the UK's Admiralty and soon to be PM in 1939, Winston Churchill no less.
Don't tell me, you were there. There was no threat, there was desperation from our Western friends for support, the same support that the Ukrainians have been looking for for the last year. And we know who didn't want to give it.
Hindsight is a great thing. At the time however the pressure of the threat was very real.
From your own link:
"Invading Ireland was neither seriously considered nor necessary, so this article has to be taken as speculative. "
I have ALREADY given my view. Here it is AGAIN. It was an act of bravery by Dev to keep us out of the war. As a fledgling country having what little infrastructure we had developed destroyed by a German bombing campaign would have sunk us.
He was under immense pressure from events happening around him and events that might happen. Read the history. No surprise who was involved in trying to exert pressure. No surprise that they had and still have allies here in the south calling Dev's stance 'cowardly'.
'Cowardly' would have been accepting Unity in return for selling out our neutrality, Churchill had no such problems, another Tory prepared to sell out Unionists if the prize was their own selfish aims.
While Churchill dismissed the proposal by Craigavon, the government later prepared detailed plans for an invasion of southern Ireland.
Churchill had Plan to Invade ‘Nazi’ Ireland - International Churchill Society (winstonchurchill.org)
Will you answer the question and stop deflecting?
It was a serious mistake to stay out of World War II. Apart from the cowardly reputation it earned this country, things like eligibility for the Marshall Aid Plan would have helped this country develop quicker. Closer relations with Britain and the USA could have helped in the context of the North - remember it took decades more to get the US involved.
De Valera's running away from the fight against the Nazis set us back.
I'll leave to your attempt to cover your blushes at not being able to work out a simple sentence.
Clearly you saw 'UK, US and destroyed' and nothing else. Sad.
What consequences exactly? Lay it out.
Are you seriously suggesting that Ireland didn't run away from the fight against the Nazis and secretly sent an army to take them on?
You might be mixed up with Sean Russell from Sinn Fein who helped the Nazis rather than fight them.
FFS, Ridiculous.
Read it again mark.
Try and think about the consequences for us if Dev had given into the pressure and entered the war.
It isn't that hard.
Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in 1994 under the pretence it had security guarantees from Russia.
It will not be fooled twice.
What?
What you really mean here is you don't have anything to back up your dismissal of my point. OK. That's fine.
