Fighter jets for the Air Corps?

That's sadly the wrong approach.

The best way to avoid a war is to prepare for one.

Currently Ireland seems to rely on the RAF for air defences, when it comes to fighter jets.

However I think that Ireland should have at least have one Irish fighter jet squadron. Eurofighters, F15, Saab Gripen something like that. Not Pilatus.

Also, Ireland is in the case of a war and as an island in the Atlantic of certain strategic interest. Even Nazi Germany was once interested, had plans, which luckily never came to life.

Hmmm….speechless

I think there was some kind agreement in place from 1948 where in the event of a war the US would be responsible for the air defense of the Republic of Ireland. And things don't get more neutral, if the air defenses are outsourced to the RAF. And Ireland's neutrality doesn't get any better if air defense is outsourced to other, notably NATO countries.

I honestly don't believe in neutrality. Neutrality is often just an excuse to under-fund the military and defense infrastructure in any country. Austria is the best example for that. Ireland can't be neutral, regardless what they write in papers, contracts, constitutions or other forms of agreements.

No country with maybe the exceptions of the US or Russia has to get military equipment from somewhere, buy it, import it. Ireland has a lot of military equipment from other NATO countries, France, Italy, etc.., Israel receives a lot of military equipment from the US, same as Switzerland. It's not only buying foreign military equipment but also having service and maintenance contracts in place, which makes one even less and less neutral.

In order for a country to be really neutral, a totally home grown military industry must exist.

Also, in the case of the Ukraine, you have to have a strong ally to support your cause, - otherwise it'll never work.

There was never such an agreement, Dev was trying to get a bilateral defence agreement at that time but that fell apart over Dublins demands that the US pick our side in regards to the North which was never going to happen. The U.K. handled things like SAR for much of the 20th century for us but there’s never been any formal agreement until the current one that nobody will even admit the details of.

As for neutrality, plenty of neutral nations invest in the defence industries, the notable local one would be Sweden of course, Austria was and is neutral as it was a demand from Russia post WW2 otherwise they would have ended up split like Germany, and even then they maintained a much larger defence industrial base throughout the Cold War (up to MBT manufacturing though not design) and even at their lowest point post CW still spent much more than us.

Our “neutrality” is like you say an excuse not to invest in the DF and a way for Dublin to avoid difficult decisions. As to getting another NATO nation to cover us, I imagine the response would be “GO F*ck yourselves”, every nation is ramping up spending and already has full commitments, nobody is going to volunteer to cover a nation that needs it because they are too cheap to provide it. The current missions like Iceland or Eastern Europe are for nations that can’t afford fighters, we aren’t on that list.

Go and read the Commission on Defence report before talking nonsense.

How about 2 or 3 then?

I think I've read it somewhere about a 1948 contract between the US and Ireland, but this contract was never enacted or used, but I never knew it was never passed. There would have been the question if the US ever had a permanent air force base on Irish soil, which also never happened.

I think this article basically sums it up:

Further below it reads:

Ireland is not totally defenceless from air threats. Following the 9/11 attacks, the government entered into a secret memorandum of understanding with the UK which would allow it to deploy Quick Reaction Force combat aircraft over Irish airspace in the event of an emergency.

The government has consistently refused to discuss this agreement or even confirm its existence and it has never been approved by the Oireachtas.

Nazi Germany did indeed have plans to invade Ireland. This fact is widely known among historians. The general plan was to "promis" and "motivate" the Irish with a united Ireland, the Nazis funding the IRA and driving the Brits out of the North, whilst allowing Nazi military presence in Ireland. The plan failed, for numerous reasons.

See also "Nazi Collaborators, the IRA" ( It's worth watching )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAL2273tNbc

Ireland as a country is from a military perspective of interest during a war, especially if it involves some kind of East-West conflict. The same applies for Iceland, or Newfoundland ( which wasn't part of Canada during WW2 and the Americans had bases there )

Has anyone got troll spray?

Yup a squadron of 10 to 12 doesn't mean much ..but

Neutrality counts for nothing... if another state thinks it's in it's interest to invade.

We're currently lucky in our geographic position ...it's not really in anyone intrest to invade us ..but if we ever need an airforce in a hurry (as opposed to an air corp ) it'll be hard to get one from an almost standing start ... So a squadron of some light fighter won't make us into some massive military force pushing our weight around - but it's a good start , it'd mean we could police our own eez , train with the Brits ,the french , the norweigans or the swedes ... Which makes it all the less likely that an air-force would be needed in anger ...

I always love reading the “sure let’s just train everyone to be guerrilla fighters” comments, as if some how that a) would be cheap, b) effective and c) wouldn’t mean mass destruction of the nation anyway (Ala Ukraine and Syria for example). Sweden and Finland for example have massive reserve forces because they have conscription, anyone suggesting that for here? They also of course spend multiple amounts of what we do. The Swiss again have the example of large reserves for insurgent style forces, yet also have fighters and MBTs for example. But somehow random Irish poster living in a fantasy I guess of the War of Independence think buying military hardware is a mistake and all it takes is Paddy with an assault rifle and that’s it for defence…

The Truth?

After you next get site banned, maybe reincarnate yourself as 'The Bullshyt'.

You're a clueless spoofing troll. Recommend to my fellow regulars to just ignore this thread the next few days.