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

Ever research what Aiken and Dev ACTUALLY thought?

Ever hear of Plan W? Which was a plan to send troops into Ireland.

'The British preferred the carrot….'😁😁😁

The bombing of Dresden was carried out by the United States Air force as well as the RAF. How would you have closed down the 100 war munitions factories and the railway marshalling yards in Dresden, as it is the worst Allied action it seems you can cherry pick during the war, and which occured after the bombing of London and Coventry etc? How would you have stood up to Hitler? Or would you not have stood up to him at all, just praised him in private and comisserated on his death?

Plan W was agreed to prevent an ‘invasion’.

YOU claimed Ireland didn’t fear invasion. They did and agreed clear parameters for Britain to put troops here and when they would leave.

2 minutes of Googling suggests a lot of criticism of his bias and ignoring less palatable parts of German actions. To then do the opposite with the allies seems hypocritical to me.

This cherry picking on one bombing and not even the worse one and being ignorant of the context and facts of strategic bombing of all sides and throughout history is effectively just repeating German propaganda of the time with no critical analysis of the facts.

It's got nothing to do with Irish Neutrality.

Also we were in a trade war with Britain as late as May 1938 which decimated the Irish Whiskey industry to a level that it is only recovering in the last few years.

True but I think that's only part of it. Lot of people were still attached to being part of British Empire. People had family in Britain and lots of economic emigration to Britain for generations.

Dev, IRA etc wanted to drive a wedge in that which is fair enough. But they continued past the point of common sense. That rhetoric was kept long after WW2. There was a lot of reprisals against any associations and the were also lots of bitterness and grudges on both sides of the Civil War. There was more fear of that than British invasion in my opinion.

I also had relatives in that that period and they saw the American troops in trucks,air battles in the sky. Yet they were back and forward to England for work. The terror and destruction from the IRA was much discussed.

That it preserved Neutrality has some merit. But not all valid. But there was an economic cost.

Reality is Ireland and UK are closely linked. Probably Brexit has strengthened Irelands economic separation from the UK like never before.

eh? Why would you expect it to be anything other than an Irish perspective.

We are judging Irish people for policies and actions carried out in their roles as Irish leaders

Not quite accurate. Britain and France mined the coast to block ore shipments. Germany invaded it in a surprise attack. King and government fled to London. Allied forces of Britain, France and Poland and Norway tried to take it back. Failed but caused significant damage to German navy especially their destroyers which it never really recovered from.

Germans used norway to feed its war industry.

This constant gross distortion of WW2 removing all nations except Britain and Germany is childish. People would remove Germany from the conversation if they thought they'd get away with it. Britain invading Norway... Etc.

Norway didn't prepare to defend itself. It's learnt that lesson.

"...Norway spends over $9 billion annually (about 1.6% of its GDP) as a founding NATO member, ..... Ireland spends roughly 1.5 billion (about 0.2% of its GDP)..."

Ah someone else will look after it.

No attempts needed. There's enough criticism of him online that you'd have to use some critical judgment on his opinions.

Well as we know Britain invaded western Europe in 1944 bombed it's way across Europe then enslaved the population of Europe with it's work camps and gulags and stripped western Europe if it's ore and minerals to build it's vast war machine. It's why all of Europe today speaks English and eats Yorkshire pudding.

Dev saved Ireland and Singapore from this horrible future by being neutral and watching from the sidelines.

Ireland Neutrality is the envy of the world especially Putin.

Thanks Dev.