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

That wasn't very sporting of them?

If my best friend was in trouble and needed my help I wouldn't make him re-mortgage his house and sell everything he owned in return for my helping him.

Of course Roosevelt needed Britain to be severely weakened for the United Stats to effectively replace British and European power on the world stage.

They didn't want a single dominating power in Europe…never did and they intervened to stop it happening.

Didn't matter if the Germans rolled into Poland or anywhere else.

Read history without the union jack specs on.

Germans rolled into a few places before Poland.

I think nobody except the Axis powers wanted a big country like Nazi Germany dominating Europe? I do not think we even here in Ireland wanted that, even though one of your fellow Republicans, and someone commemorated by the party you follow S.F., Sean Russell, did try to co-operate with Nazi Germany, before he was killed (or at least died) on a german U-boat?

I do not think even Dev would have wanted Europe dominated by Hitler, although he did go out of hios way to express condolences on his death, which took some guts when the rest of the world was after watching the horrors of the extermination camps on News Reels. Maybe if you take off your green tinted specs you can see that? (you accused me og u.j. specs).

'Holocaust denier' now!! 😀😀

"Dev's administration interned IRA members without trial and established military tribunals that executed several IRA men during the war."

Okay and what do you think about that?

You're throwing it out there but what exactly is your opinion on it.

The question I posted / implied is if it was wrong for the British / northern authorities to do it, then surely it was wrong for Dev and his government to do it?

I think in those desperate times internment of some sort was necessary, because the IRA in 8 months alone caused roughly 300 acts of sabotage and explosions, leading to 10 deaths and nearly 100 injuries.

Executing some IRA in jail seemed to have worked as a deterrent because Dev did it and it seemed to work? There was little or no outcry. And much less if any trouble in the final years of the war than in 1939 / 40? Perhaps Dev had been instructed by Churchill / the Canadians and Americans to stop IRA violence and sabatage, because the free world had much bigger things to concentrate on? What do you think?

Would like to know what others thought of internment but I guess nobody will think it was a good idea or necessary.

I do answer questions, unlike some other posters.

The thread title is about Irish neutrality during the war. We were speculating that perhaps Dev had been instructed by Churchill / the Canadians and Americans to stop IRA violence and sabotage ( there were about IRA 300 explosions / sabotage in 1939 / 1940 in Britain ), because the free world had much bigger things to concentrate on? Hence perhaps why internment without trial happened by Dev, and some IRA were executed. The other poster asked me what I thought about it.

As I said, I do answer questions, unlike some other posters.

in 1939 what did our military consist of ?

Sources differ but one suggests we had as few as about 19,500 active personnel. We had a chronic shortage of weapons and other equipment too at that time for those 19,500. Our economy at that time was in a depression, so given those factors what could we have done ?

All the above basically in no small part down to the way we’d been treated by the British…

So not unreasonable that we sat it out. Beyond sending men in a cannon fodder, what could we have done ?

No, You were speculating for reasons best known to yourself

But the weren't executed for being IRA members. They were executed for the murder's of Gardai, and there were 9 other executions of non IRA murderers during the war, were they on Churchills wishes also?

Why would they build an airfield in Belmullet in 43 when they had Base One Europe in Derry since 1941 (where my wife's grandfather was based).

You keep posting that Times article but all it shows that the Irish government received letters over the rumor that Dev signed a book of condolence. Here is the actual account of what happened from the man himself.

Not sure about the distance from Belmullet to Derry as the crow flies, but by road it is 261 km. From Derry to west Cork would be even further. Planes could have narrowed the mid Atlantic gap that bit sooner if they were based further west.

I said "I think the prudent thing for Ireland to have done in the war, if we were to have sat on our hands during the first few years of the war, would have been to allow the Allies ( perhaps the Canadians or Americans) build an airfield near Belmullet or West Cork if they wanted to ( airfields were frequently built during the war ) in mid or late 1943 when it was becoming apparent the Allies would probably win the war. They may have said f*** you to Dev at that stage, but it would still have saved Allied lives and been a nice gesture. We would not have been so isolated in the world in the 10 year period after the war, after Dev expressed his condolences over Hitler, when most of the free world hated us and even Russia blocked our entry in to the UN."

Why would road distance between them matter when we're talking about airbases? US planes were travelling via the North Atlantic route via Greenland so would have to pass over Derry to reach Belmullet/West Cork. As it was the US and UK were allowed to use both Shannon and Foynes for non-military purposes and many officials transited through both.

Was declaring war on Nazi Germany after Germany invaded Poland not in the interests of the free world? The Polish certainly thought so. Those who the Nazi did not send to the extermination camps.

Second question - which I am sure you will not answer either - is what would the world be like if nobody challenged Hitler? If the British had sat on their hands like Dev did?

Third question: Would Hitler have expressed his condolences on the death of Dev if Dev were to have died first?

Fourth question: did Hitler ever express condolences on the death of any of the 6 million plus victims of the extermination camps?

No wonder even the Russians shunned us for 10 years after the war.