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

I already answered you on the American note.

For instance, the intelligence co-operation was such that the OSS decided to ask de Valera for permission to use Irish diplomats in Berlin, Rome and Vichy as American spies.

Carter Nicholas, the head of the Irish Desk at OSS headquarters, visited Dublin in September 1943 and talked to Joe Walshe, who secured de Valera's approval for the scheme.

After the military blocked Gray's plan to ask for bases, he persuaded the White House just to ask de Valera to promise to make the bases available if they were needed but the British blocked this because they feared that de Valera would agree. Gray then suggested that Roosevelt should demand the expulsion of the Axis diplomats on the grounds that they were a threat to Allied plans for the D-Day landing.

The request was purely a political ploy without any security basis, so the OSS felt this was none of its business. The British liked the idea, and a formal note from Roosevelt was read to de Valera by Gray on February 21, 1944.

The note outlined help that the United States had given to Ireland over the decades and suggested that this was being repaid with an Irish policy that helped the Nazis. As "an absolute minimum", Roosevelt demanded that the Irish expel the Axis diplomats, because they afforded Germany an espionage advantage that was endangering "the lives of thousands" of American soldiers preparing for the Allied invasion of Europe. The note was worded to ensure de Valera's rejection.

The story was leaked to the American press and a smear campaign was launched against de Valera in America, where the episode made front page news throughout the country during the week leading up to St Patrick's Day. Administration officials contended that the Irish should realise that diplomats were an espionage threat.

De Valera saw red. Walshe went to London to warn Marlin that if the American divulged that Irish diplomats were being used as American spies, all co-operation would be cut off.

At that point, the OSS intervened with Roosevelt to impress on him the extent of secret Irish co-operation and the second note was scrapped, but the damage had been done to de Valera's reputation in America. The episode has contributed to two great myths that de Valera was indifferent to the fate of the Allies, and that Ireland was actually neutral during the war.

So the OSS actually had to reign in Roosevelt to stop him destroying a spy network the had built up in the Irish delegations in Rome, Berlin and Vichy.

Interestingly, the people bombed in Dublin said they survived the war by (quote) " Listening to the wireless and to the songs that won the war…..”we’ll meet again”, “white cliffs of dover”, “wish me luck as you wave me golodbye”,"

They were hardly tuning in to Joe Duffy now were they?

The Second World War was a testing time for Radio Éireann but technological developments in the 1940s would make radio production more flexible.

The Second World War (known as 'The Emergency' in Ireland) was a testing time for Radio Éireann. Censorship was rigorously enforced over all the Irish media between 1939 and 1945 under the Emergency Powers Act and, as a state run service and accessible overseas, Radio Éireann broadcasts received particularly close attention.

War reporting was censored because of the policy of neutrality. Bulletins prepared by the tiny newsroom staff consisted of extracts from official communiqués without any comment. Before being broadcast, these news bulletin scripts were read over the phone to Head of the Government Information Bureau, Frank Gallagher. Before 1939, Mr Gallagher had been Assistant Director at Radio Éireann: he was now its censor.

Neutrality brought other changes. All three Radio Éireann transmitters at Dublin, Cork and Athlone were synchronised onto a single frequency - this measure was intended to prevent the transmitters being used for direction-finding by aircraft.

Furthermore, there was a prohibition on broadcasting weather forecasts, which were regarded as strategically important. Apart from the ongoing annoyance for farmers and fishermen, this policy meant, for example, that a sports commentator would have to omit an innocent phrase such as "it's a lovely day here today in Dublin for the football final".

The idea that 'songs won the war' is quite something. No harm people talking about their memories, but a 7 yr old liking and enjoying a song is being taken wildly out of it's perspective in a silly emotive way.

The American government officially wrote "Axis agents enjoy almost unrestricted opportunity for bringing military information of vital importance from Great Britain and Northern Ireland into Ireland and from there transmitting it by various routes and methods to Germany".

They referenced radios being parachuted in to Ireland from Germany etc.

Here is the full text of just one letter:

Excellency,1
Your Excellency will recall that in your speech at Cork, delivered on the 14th December, 1941,2 you expressed sentiments of special friendship for the American people on the occasion of their entry into the present war and closed by saying 'The policy of the State remains unchanged. We can only be a friendly neutral.' As you will also recall, extracts of this speech were transmitted to the President by your Minister at Washington. The President, while conveying his appreciation for this expression of friendship, stated his confidence that the Irish Government and the Irish people whose freedom is at stake no less than ours3 would know how to meet their responsibilities in this situation.

It has become increasingly apparent that, despite the declared desire of the Irish Government that its neutrality should not operate in favor of either of the belligerents, it has in fact operated and continues to operate in favor of the Axis Powers and against the United Nations on whom your security4 and the maintenance of your national economy depend.5 One of the gravest and most inequitable results of this situation is the opportunity for highly organized espionage6 which the geographical position of Ireland affords the Axis and denies the United Nations. Situated as you are in close proximity to Britain divided only by an intangible boundary from Northern Ireland where are situated important American bases with continuous traffic to and from both countries, Axis agents enjoy almost unrestricted opportunity for bringing military information of vital importance from Great Britain and Northern Ireland into Ireland and from there transmitting it by various routes and methods to Germany.7 No opportunity corresponding to this is open to the United Nations for the Axis has no military dispositions which may be observed from Ireland. We do not question the good faith of the Irish Government in its efforts to suppress Axis espionage. Whether or to what extent it has succeeded in preventing acts of espionage against American shipping and American forces in Great Britain and Northern Ireland is, of course, impossible to determine with certainty.8 Nevertheless, it is a fact that German and Japanese diplomatic and consular representatives still continue to reside in Dublin9 and enjoy the special privileges and immunities customarily accorded to such officials.10 That Axis representatives in neutral countries use these special privileges and immunities as a cloak for espionage activities against the United Nations has been demonstrated over and over again. It would be naïve to assume that Axis agencies have not exploited conditions to the full in Ireland as they have in other countries.11 It is our understanding that the German Legation in Dublin, until recently at least, has had in its possession a radio sending set. This is evidence of the intention of the German Government to use this means of communication.12 Supporting evidence is furnished by the two parachutists equipped with radio sending sets recently dropped on your territory by German planes.13

As you know from common report, United Nation military operations are in preparation in both Britain and Northern Ireland. It is vital that information from which may be deduced their nature and direction should not reach the enemy.14 Not only the success of the operations but the lives of thousands of United Nation soldiers are at stake. We request therefore that the Irish Government take appropriate steps for the recall of German and Japanese representatives in Ireland. We should be lacking in candor if we did not state our hope that this action will take the form of severance of all diplomatic relations between Ireland and these two countries. You will, of course, readily understand the compelling reasons why we ask as an absolute minimum the removal of these Axis representatives whose presence in Ireland must inevitably be regarded as constituting a danger to the lives of American soldiers and to the success of Allied military operations.

It is hardly necessary to point out that time is of extreme importance and that we trust Your Excellency will favor us with your reply at your early convenience.

Yiou did not read my post or links, did you? If you did you would be aware there was of course more than one radio the Germans ever had. In the link above the American govt wrote in 1944, ( after your 1943 reference)

" Supporting evidence is furnished by the two parachutists equipped with radio sending sets recently dropped on your territory by German planes." That is just 2 replacement ones that the Americans knew of.

As was known to the American officials, it is true that the German Minister had a wireless transmitter. But he had been for a long time debarred from using it, and it has been in the custody of the Irish Government for some months. As regards the two parachutists dropped in Ireland last December, they were apprehended within a few hours. Two other agents dropped here since the war began met with a similar fate. The fifth, who arrived during the first year of the war, remained at large until the 3rd December, 1941, but the police were aware of his presence here almost from the first moment of landing, and successful activities on his part were rendered impossible. The total number of persons, inclusive of these parachutists, suspected of intention to engage in espionage, and now held in Irish prisons, is ten foreign and two Irish nationals. These are the facts, and it is doubtful if any other country can show such a record of care and successful vigilance.

Devs response.

And what about Gray's role?

In January 1943 Joseph P Walshe, secretary of the Department of External Affairs, offered to share Irish intelligence with the OSS. He was acting at the behest of de Valera, but US Minister David Gray objected. He argued that it might be some kind of plot by de Valera to charge the Americans with conspiring against the Irish government. Gray was overruled in Washington, but Marlin found working with him so difficult that he got himself moved to London, and continued his liaison with Irish intelligence from there.

His own countrymen hated him.

Carter Nicholas, the head of the Irish Desk at OSS headquarters, visited Dublin in September 1943 and talked to Joe Walshe, who secured de Valera's approval for the scheme.

After the military blocked Gray's plan to ask for bases, he persuaded the White House just to ask de Valera to promise to make the bases available if they were needed but the British blocked this because they feared that de Valera would agree. Gray then suggested that Roosevelt should demand the expulsion of the Axis diplomats on the grounds that they were a threat to Allied plans for the D-Day landing.

The request was purely a political ploy without any security basis, so the OSS felt this was none of its business. The British liked the idea, and a formal note from Roosevelt was read to de Valera by Gray on February 21, 1944.

The OSS were against the Note being sent.

Where was all this evidence when they had Hempel in custody? Non existent as they cleared him at the lowest level available.

So German agents had access to various routes and methods to transmit to Germany? It doesn't seem to say the German legation was one of them.

If the OSS were aware of this why did they object to the Note? If they could triangulate a signal to the Embassy why didn't they contact anyone about it? They had no problem asking to use Irish diplomats as spies and were glad of the help so asking us to shut down a German spy ring would have been easy.

Maybe because Gray was a loose cannon that even his own people transferred away from him.

But according to you the Allies had proof he had blood on his hands. You say they had little to gain from punishing Hempel but the were prosecuting war criminals up until 2024 (a secretary at Stutthof got 2 years) but he was cleared.

Gray was prone to Hyperbole also

Gray caused a major diplomatic incident in December 1942 when he told a visiting American journalist that Ireland had “scores” of consular attachés from the Axis powers of Germany, Italy and Japan who were there solely for espionage purposes. He estimated that 80 staff alone worked in the German Legation

The actual figure was 6 in total.

Lets look at that info that was being sent

German diplomats in Dublin had identified 600 air installations in England. Carter Nicholas, the head of the Éire Desk at OSS headquarters, noted that it “looked to me at first as though there was a serious leak from Éire”. The OSS promptly shared this alarming information with its British counterpart, MI5, but the British explained that the reports from Dublin

were part of a British deception plan. MI5 had been feeding misinformation to the German legation. In an effort to ensure that the Germans believed the distorted information, the material was buried in a wealth of accurate information that the Germans already knew.

When MI5 explained the situation, Nicholas realised that the Irish security “situation was even better under control that I had previously thought”.

MI5 feared that the proposed American note demanding the expulsion of Axis diplomats from Dublin would actually endanger Allied security, as the Allies had already broken the German codes and were reading all the messages from the legation in Dublin. If the diplomats were expelled, however, the Germans might infiltrate a useful spy.

Gray tried to sabotage Dev and nearly sabotaged his own side!

Source for this figure of 80 people collecting information ?

The 12 spies were arrested within hours of landing apart from one who the kept under observation.

Axis agents enjoy almost unrestricted opportunity for bringing military information of vital importance from Great Britain and Northern Ireland into Ireland and from there transmitting it by various routes and methods to Germany".

You keep posting this whilst ignoring the fact that it was M15 who were feeding this info as a diversion and that the OSS didn't realise this. In fact the American letter nearly destroyed all the good work they had done and MI5 had to dissuade the Americans from pursuing the expulsion lest the Germans sent someone competent.

I said "It is quite possible that the Germans had 80 people collecting information". Considering the Germans landed 12 known spies in to Ireland, the IRA were collaborating with the Nazis - as we know from the Sean Russell episode - why would it not be possible? Was there internment here of German citizens do you think, similar to internment of Japanese in the States?

If you have links on what M15 fed or did not feed the Nazi Hempel and his comrades in Dublin, for transmission by various means to Berlin, do provide those links.

How many times have you said this now?

I'm sure I'm not the only one sick and tired of you parroting it over and over again.

Move on from it, the rest of the world has.

Was correcting FrancieBrady post 622, who was trying to turn the debate in to post WW2 about neutrality - neutrality since WW2 - and obviously did not read all the thread.

Part of the criticism is that Dev's decision 'held us back'.

When asked for tangible examples of this that were directly related to staying neutral there seems to be silence coming from the critics.

And other criticism was his controversal condolences on Hitler, condemned around the world. And the fact the mid Atlantic gap cost the un-necessary loss of Allied lives.

Post war we were given the cold shoulder, even the Russians stopped us joining the UN until 1955 even though we applied in 1946.