Is Irelands neutrality stance in WW2 unfairly criticized? (see Mod note 217)

I have got many dozens of replies : if I made a mistake, that is why I wrote "

"Hands up, I forgot the Northern authorities did execute one IRA person out of 5 or 6 caught for murdering a Catholic RUC man, a father of 9 if I remember correctly, early during WW2. Dev murdered more in Irish jail. Considering the IRA carried out approx 300 bombings and acts of sabotage in mainland Britain between January 1939 and March 1940, maybe corporal punishment on both sides of the border worked? It had to work in order for Irish neutrality to work?"

I think you're willfully misunderstanding.

Chamberlain gave the Treaty Ports back, which he and defence chiefs regarded as outdated coastal defences (though obviously Churchill disagreed), knowing it would allow Ireland to be neutral but hoping Britain would receive Irish co-operation in return, which it did: vital intelligence-sharing, overflights using the "Donegal Corridor", produce and food exports, sharing of weather data critical for the D-Day landings, and secretly allowing Allied aircraft to use Irish airspace.

As this co-operation was mostly extremely covert, Churchill was able to skew perception afterwards by making it seem like Ireland was simply thumbing its nose. But it isn't 1945 anymore, we now have all the declassified facts and contexual background.

Your dishonest, self-pitying British nationalism is very hard to take. You are repeating a propaganda narrative which is 80 years past its sell by date.

and trusted us too.

Still in denial of the facts.

With lots to justify it in the recent past and in the lead up to war WE didn't trust the British.
That was not an unreasonable mistrust.

Nobody only British sycophants is going to apologise for treating the British warily. As we seen with Brexit, they are still not to be trusted - get everything signed and agreed with them as any self respecting Unionist would tell you.

There's nothing wrong with Britain pursuing British interests, even pursing British interest at Ireland's expense. Even dishonestly, if that's necessary (hey do what you have to do).

But why do we have to subjected to a sentimental campaign by other Irish people eighty years later trying to leverage Hitler's genuine badness to make it seem like the Allies were angels from heaven, when they were anything but?

Countries do what is in their own interest. Britain does it and Ireland is going to do it too.

Dev didn't murder anyone. Like the British they executed prisoners convicted of capital crimes.

The "sharing of weather data critical for the D-Day landings" is very overstated. Rest assured the allies had multiple ships and met. stations in the North Atlantic collecting weather data, and in any case would not have relied on the weather data from one particular source. Yes, I know there was some co-operation between the Allies and our government.

The fact remains we did not do an awful lot to defeat Nazism or defend the free world, over 50 countries around the world did more. Dev in expressing condolences on Hitlers death when the world was in shock after Hitlers extermination camps being exposed to the world did not help Ireland in the decade or 2 after the war though. Dev's stance was noted by everyone from the Americans to the Russians, who blocked our entry in to the U.N. until 1955 etc.

The point is Chamberlain made a trade-off to get covert co-operation from Ireland and he got it.

As I've pointed out multiple times the Americans and Russians were hedging their bets until Hitler dragged them kicking and screaming into the war.

The Soviets partitioned Poland with Germany. The Soviets even arguably helped kick off the war by suddenly declaring neutrality towards Germany which gave the Germans a free hand to invade east and west.

Meanwhile Roosevelt was bleeding Britain dry, and probably laughing about it, with literal ships filled with tonnes of gold sailing from Britain to North America to pay for 'assistance'.

It would have been even cuter if Roosevelt could have kept the US out of the war entirely, which was his intention, watching Britain and Germany fight to a stalemate, and picking up the pieces afterwards and negotiating with whoever was left.

Britain's original war aim, to guarantee Polish independence, was never achieved unfortunately as the Soviet Union were allowed to keep the parts of Poland they invaded (with German complicity) and effectively control Poland until 1990.

Can you withdraw your allegation " Britain has always acted in it's selfish interests ".

Absolutely not.

GB ending up with a bloody nose is not proof that they were not acting in their own best interests.

You are muddying the waters even further by bringing persecution of Jews into it. They were rounded up in Czechoslovakia first. There were Jews living in the Sudetenland which Britain ceded to Germany with the signing of the Munich Agreement.

I've never seen anyone argue that persecution of Jews was a red line for Britain in the 1930s - just how naive are you? Or I suppose it is faux-naivety which suits your agenda.

British policy for centuries was to prevent a single power from dominating the European Continent (Napoleon etc.) because a single dominant European power would be a challenger to the British Empire. Of course they were driven by self-interest.

Near-bankrupted because Roosevelt played them. Why no debt forgiveness for Britain?

"Britain made its final repayment for World War II loans to the United States and Canada on December 29, 2006."

You got played, son.

Keep on rocking in the free world.

Why didn't they act when the Anschluss took place? Or th annexation of Czechoslovakia?

Appeasement, and the British paid a very heavy price in WW1, every family had someone affected. Nobody wanted another world war.

They had to draw a line in the sand somewhere with Nazi Germany. Are you not glad SOMEBODY did? As asked already, what do you think happened to a lot of the citizens of Poland as a result, do you think Hitler sent them to Disneyland or for picnics in mother and babies homes in Tuam? What did Dev do to help? Apart from commisserating on the death of the man who set up the extermination camps?

What do you think happened to the Czechs that Britain sold out? I already asked you to list out what Ireland should have contributed to the war effort if we had joined so we go go through it point by point. You don't seem to want to debate it but just keep having digs a Dev by calling him a murderer and a holocaust denier!