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

Why wasn't the free world worried about Czechoslovakia? Maybe they didn't have the natural resources of Poland?

What natural resources did Britain ever take from Poland?

Your comments are highly insensitive. Poland lost over 5 million of its citizens (around 17% of its pre-war population) during World War II. About 3 million of them were Jews.

Yes, I did. Colonisers were savage killers throughout history. Ever study history?

And you don't seem to care about the 270,000 Czech Jews that were killed after Britain allowed Germany to annex them.

WW2 was on a different scale.

"…World War II is the deadliest conflict in human history, resulting in an estimated 70 to 85 million fatalities worldwide. This massive death toll includes both military personnel and tens of millions of civilians who died from combat, famine, disease, and genocide...."

It wasn't a local squabble between two countries.

I doubt if you either know or care what Polish people thought of it.

In facts many Poles came to resent the Anglo-Polish Mutual Assistance Agreement when the dust settled as it was clear that Britain didn't have the resources to defend Poland (or Eastern European Jews for that matter) in 1939 and then at Yalta in 1945 FDR and Churchill ceded Poland to Soviet domination. So much for Polish freedom.

Basically it was a bluff and there wasn't any follow-through in securing Polish independence.

But yeah just keep evoking outrage at DeValera as if he were personally responsible for the Holocaust. That's reasonable.

I'm not holding a grudge though.

I'm replying to the propaganda narrative that Britain rode to the rescue of Poles and Jews while DeValera perversely sat on the sidelines indifferent to their suffering.

Normally I would not be so unsparing in my assessment. But a splash of cold water to face - talking about the actual failure to rescue Poland, the preventable and farcical fall of Singapore etc. - is appropriate in this discussion because I don't see why Irish people should be retailing to each other the sentimental storybook version of the war, plucky Britain standing alone with the meanie DeValera skulking in the corner.

Surely enough time has now passed to view this war with detachment and recognise the power politics and the strategic failures with a cold eye?

It seems the US government were extremely annoyed with the Irish government even as early as 1941.

I guess De Valera can be criticised legitimately for a lot of what you have listed but if the people of Ireland were in favour of his neutral policy at the time. who are we to judge him about that 80 years later? WW2 involved colonial powers fighting other wannabe colonial powers so I'm not sure its fair to judge a country that had relatively recently at that time become independent from an empire to be hesitant to join that same colonial power in the fight against Germany.

The Polish and Czechs have a very mixed view of their "Rescue"

Dev got more wrong than right.

What's a red herring is saying anyone's suggesting Ireland go to war. What would Ireland have gone to war with? No ships, no aircraft, no tanks nothing. No means of getting any.

Getting hysterical about the thoughts the devastation across europe would happen in Ireland is ridiculous. Ireland would never have been a main battlefields in the same mainland Europe was. It wasn't in the path of the land war.

Neutrality saved Ireland from an almost non existent threat.

Going to war is very different to lending support. Ireland had contraventions of its own neutrality almost all in support of the allies. So Ireland picked a side, but just stopped short of actually making any really useful contributions.

That was more to vex Britain than any real strategy in my opinion. Also to be a spectator in a world conflict against the axis instead of giving aid. I think that's how it's viewed internationally. UN veto is a reflection of that.

They should ask themselves why did they not rescue themselves from Germany and Russia.

We should look at the situation today. Poland allocating roughly 4.8% of its GDP to Irelands compared to Ireland's roughly 0.2%.

Saying "Look at us we are neutral" isn't stopping Russian belligerent behaviour against Ireland today.

Dev and his team vexed the Americans so badly enough in 1941 that the American President threw tablecloths and cutlery at Dev's Frank Aiken

Trumps antics are nothing in comparison.

Roosevelt knew American boys would die un-necessarily because of the gap in air cover in mid Atlantic, something Dev could have helped quite easily. And so they did. And Dev did not go to their mothers and offer condolences.

No wonder Ireland was an economic backwater for a decade or two after the war. Everyone from the Americans to the Russians shunning us. The Allies won WW2, no great thanks to us. Dev insulted them by offering condolences on the death of Hitler. And we done f*** all during the cold war either : Poland and Check. would still be under the fist of Russia only for the likes of the USA and UK.

More nonsense:

the US maintained normal diplomatic links.

Trade remained normal and there was no sanctions, no embargo's and NO breakdown in relations.

We also participated in The Marshall Plan but because we were not yet industrialised we didn't attract huge aid because others needed it more.

No doubt about Russia vetoing us, but that had more to do with wider cold war bargaining.