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

No edit of the wikipedia page. I quoted from the section Timeline of German bombings of the Irish state. The Synagogue is mention in detail further down.

Several buildings were bombed before the synagogue the Creamery in Wexford was August 20th 1940.

I never said anything abojut the Nazi's paying compensation. I said the Germans.

The Irish Independent didn't mention the Synagogue bombing because it was published BEFORE the bombing which I stated! I merely used that to prove that there was no Censorship or blackout of the bombings in the Irish press.

You seem to have a problem reading through links provided and my posts as you seem to gloss over anything that doesn't suit your narrative. You have willfully omitted sections of the links you provided that disprove your argument.

AGAIN, How did the meeting end between FDR and Aiken?

I said in Dublin, "the Creamery in Wexford" is not in Dublin.

I never said that you said the Nazis paid compensation, you said the Germans. I made the point it was "The west German government in the late fifties, not the Nazi government, paid money to Ireland, a paltry amount, under £400,000, to compensate for many Irish people killed in their bombing in Ireland. This came out of Marshall aid money from the Americans."

I never said there was a blackout of the Bombings in general in the press : I said it was the bombing of the Synagogue which was not widely reported. Did you know the first public building the Germans would hit in Dublin would be the Synagogue?

Fair enough, in one post I said the Synagogue was the first public building hit in Dublin by German bombing : in another post I said it was the first public building hit in Ireland by German bombing. May I clarify and say it was just the first public building hit in Dublin by German bombing. There was a Presbyterian Church also in the Jewish quarter then, that was also damaged by the German bombing. They were both damaged in the first 24 hours of German bombing of Dublin.

It was not widely reported that the Synagogue bombing - accidental or not - was the first public building bombed by the Germans in Dublin. You linked to the Irish Independent but it did not say the Synagogue was bombed and structurally damages.

The newspaper did say in relation to German bombing in general " the prevailing opinion in Ireland was that pilots wanted to offload bombs ensuring planes were light enough to survive the flight back to base". It forgot to say that there was no blackout in Dublin during "the emergency", unlike in N. Ireland and Britain. If the German pilots "wanted to offload bombs ensuring planes were light enough to survive the flight back to base", they would have dropped them in the sea 5 or 10 km away, rather than on a Synagogue.

Now maybe it was a coincidence that Lord Haw Haw, the Nazi propoganda minister, warned us shortly before that Dublin was going to be bombed. Maybe it was a coincidence the planes circled around low and maybe it was a coincidence the bombs fell on the Synagogue.

As regards Roosevelts meeting with Aiken, many pages were spent telling you exactly how it ended, and backed it up with quotes from a link, and links. See posts no. 888, 892, 896. You did not answer my questions at the time. Now stop badgering.

A few questions for you: the Germans sunk a number of Irish ships / vessels in the Atlantic, even though they were clearly identifiable as Irish. For example the Irish Pine ship, a ship we leased from the Americans, with the loss of about 3 dozen crew, most of them Irish if I remember correctly. Are you going to tell us that was accidental as well, or maybe the German submarines were getting rid of their torpedoes before heading home to France?

Did Hempel express his condolences to Dev or to the families to those lost at sea ( all crew of the ship died )? Did Dev indeed go to the ordinary Irish families and express his condolences, seeing as he had form on April 2nd 1945 for going and expressing condolences for the most evil man in history?

God bless the poor men in Irish ships lost at sea, because of German attacks in WW2. Huge respect to them.

As regards the meeting betwen Aiken and Roosevelt, you were given lots of links and quotes already. Obviously you did not like them. Here is a another account of the meeting, from our own Examiner Newspaper:

"Aiken arrived in Washington on Mar 18, 1941, but was kept waiting for almost three full weeks before he got to meet the president, who treated him dismissively. He accused Aiken of being anti-British.

Shortly after the meeting began an aide entered the Oval Office and put a tablecloth and arranged cutlery on the president’s desk, but Aiken refused to take the none-too-subtle hint to leave. He had come too far and waited too long to be brushed off that easily. Aiken denied he was pro-Nazi, and the president suddenly jerked the tablecloth from the desk, sending the cutlery flying, and ending the meeting."

A few questions for you: the Germans sunk a number of Irish ships / vessels in the Atlantic, even though they were clearly identifiable as Irish. For example the Irish Pine ship, a ship we leased from the Americans, with the loss of about 3 dozen crew, most of them Irish if I remember correctly. Are you going to tell us that was accidental as well, or maybe the German submarines were getting rid of their torpedoes before heading home to France?

Did Hempel express his condolences to Dev or to the families to those lost at sea ( all crew of the ship died )? Did Dev indeed go to the ordinary Irish families and express his condolences, seeing as he had form on April 2nd 1945 for going and expressing condolences for the most evil man in history?

I asked you questions first, you refused to answer and despite that your questions on the Aiken-Roosevelt meeting were answered in full. A good summary of it was from the Examiner link I showed you, as you did not read the other, more detailed links I gave you.

"Aiken arrived in Washington on Mar 18, 1941, but was kept waiting for almost three full weeks before he got to meet the president, who treated him dismissively. He accused Aiken of being anti-British.

Shortly after the meeting began an aide entered the Oval Office and put a tablecloth and arranged cutlery on the president’s desk, but Aiken refused to take the none-too-subtle hint to leave. He had come too far and waited too long to be brushed off that easily. Aiken denied he was pro-Nazi, and the president suddenly jerked the tablecloth from the desk, sending the cutlery flying, and ending the meeting."

Aiken then toured the US and associated openly with some of Roosevelt’s bitterest political opponents. As a result Gray was instructed to tell Éamon de Valera that while the US would negotiate the transfer of a couple of ships, it would not deal with Aiken. Insulted by Gray’s attitude, the taoiseach was unwilling to negotiate with him for the ship.

"Roosevelt was only trying to placate his Irish-American supporters. He publicly announced that the US would send $500,000 worth of medical supplies to Ireland.

“I’d hate like hell to think our nuisance value was only half a million dollars,” Aiken remarked to legendary pilot Charles Lindbergh, who was leading the opposition to the White House’s pro-British policies.

The Americans approached Robert Brennan, the Irish minister in Washington, with an offer of two impounded Italian vessels, but Dublin balked at this. Next, two American ships — the West Hematite and West Neris, which had lain idle in New Orleans for several years — were chartered to Irish Shipping Ltd. The two ships sailed from New Orleans en route to Ireland in Sep 1941.

The West Hematite, which was renamed the Irish Pine, made it to Ireland expeditiously and promptly began trading between the US and Ireland, until it was torpedoed by a U-boat on Nov 16, 1942, foundering within three minutes with the loss of all 33 of the crew."

"The West Neris, which was renamed the Irish Oak, was in such poor condition it had to return for repairs several times before it could cross the Atlantic. It took it nine months to complete the journey from New Orleans to Dublin. The ship seemed plagued with bad luck.

On Oct 19, 1942, its captain Matthew Moran, 51, from Rosslare, fell from the gangway while boarding the ship in Dublin and received injuries from which he died four days later. While returning from Florida with a cargo of phosphates on May 14, 1943, the Irish Oak noticed that it was being shadowed a U-boat. Next morning at 8.40am it was torpedoed without warning about 800 miles (1,300km) from Cobh."

"James Everett, the Labour deputy, brought up the sinking of the Irish Oak in the Dáil. He asked the taoiseach if the ship had warned a nearby British convoy of the presence of the submarine.

“It is not the business of our ships to give information to anybody,” de Valera replied.

The failure to inform the convoy led to questions in the British parliament. Douglas Savory, the Ulster Unionist member, called for all coal supplies to be cut off to the 26 counties in retaliation."

The quotes above are from the article in the link below:

I've been asking you for the last two days to answer from the original link you posted. You answered with what you said was the end but it wasn't was it?

You've now come out today with a new article with what you yourself describe as a summary. This report doesn't contain some of the quotes you used in your "answer" to my question.

So let's try this again.

Using the original link you posted and quoted from

How did the meeting end?

Edit: Grammar

You are not listening to me are you? You posted a link yesterday and quoted select parts of it. I challenged you on it and asked you to tell me USING YOUR OWN LINK how the meeting ended. You have refused to answer instead coming back today with a different link, which literally said it it's a summary of the meeting, that even omitsout the parts that you yourself were using in your argument!

I already know the answer to the question because I read the original link you used, one which I may add I posted last week to counter another one of your tangents, what I'm trying to do is establish your credibility! By not answering the question and trying to pivot to something else it just shows that you are admitting to selective quoting and omitting facts you don't like and thus rendering ever argument you've made null and void!

Answer that and I'll talk to you. And stop with the spamming the same link over and over when I gave you better links for the point you're trying to make!

I'll make it easy for you!

During the interview, General Watson4 had come in a couple of times to signify that the interview was at an end, but, as Mr. Aiken had not said all he wanted to say, he kept on. At this stage, however, the President showed that the interview was at an end, and a couple of other Secretaries had come in as well as a half a dozen negro waiters who prepared to serve the President's lunch.

Mr. Aiken, standing, asked the President whether we could say that he (the President) sympathised with Ireland's stand against aggression. The President replied 'against German aggression'. Mr. Aiken said 'or British aggression'. The President said 'Nonsense, you don't fear an attack from England. England is not going to attack you. It's a preposterous suggestion.' Mr. Aiken said why did the British refuse to give us a specific undertaking on this point when they were asked to. The President said 'It is absurd nonsense, ridiculous nonsense. Why, Churchill would never do anything of that kind. I wouldn't mind saying it to him myself.' Mr. Aiken said 'Will you do this, Mr. President'. He said 'I certainly will. I'll ask Churchill myself.' Mr. Aiken then said 'Would you give an instruction, Mr. President, that we get a definite yes or no on the matter of supplies within a few days'. He said 'I will do that.' We then withdrew, the interview having lasted from 12.30 to 1.45.

Do you think the meeting ended before or after the bit in bold!

There were only 14 countries in the whole world that remained neutral during WW2.

Not saying that was good or bad, just saying that is how it was.

All of the Allies were convinced that having bases in Ireland during WW2 would have critically shortened the Battle of the Atlantic, saved thousands of Allied lives, and significantly reduced shipping losses. That is why Churchill offered a United Ireland if the Allies could have the use of the treaty ports back ( Britain gave them to Ireland in 1938 in a spirit of goodwill). The absence of these bases created what they considered a devastating geographical disadvantage for the Allies known as the "Western Approaches Gap".

An interesting analogy would be Portugal. It was neutral officially but it gave the use of its territory the Azores for use by some of the Allies. It was not attacked by any of the Axis powers. Portugal done its bit to help the Allies in the Atlantic.

Even if we did not stand up to Hitler ourselves, we could have done more to help those who did, especially in the closing year or two of the war when it was increasingly likely the Allies would win.

To a certain extent, yes, the world discovered that the Axis powers were even more evil than ever imagined as the war came to an end and exterminations camps were liberated in Europe, Japanese prisoner of war camps were liberated in the far east, which were just as horrific etc.

However, others were telling our government of the realities of Nazism in the early forties, but our government was too evil to listen and pass the information on. It kept our population in the dark as regards the evils of Nazism. Even after Kristelnacht, other neutral countries invaded, the Blitz which killed tens of thousands of civilians in our neighbours etc. Nearly 1000 civilians were killed in the Blitz in Belfast in Spring 1941. Lord Haw Haw told us Dublin would be bombed and then it was bombed etc. The writing was on the wall.

At the meeting between Roosevelt and Aiken in America in 1941, Roosevelt told Aiken " The President went on to talk of the dire consequences that would come to Ireland in the event of a German victory. "

Aiken was too anti-British to take that on board. If many of the Irish public were ignorant of the dangers of a German victory, that was because of the failure of the leadership of our country.

"The President (Roosevelt) interrupted to say that he believed in being perfectly frank. He said 'you are reported as having said that the Irish had nothing to fear from a German victory'. " Of course Aiken disagreed he had said that, even though the FBI had listened to his speeches and talks for the previous few weeks.

" The President said that the Irish did not seem to realise what a German victory would mean. At present they could buy and sell where they liked, but the Germans, even if they did not ravage and destroy the country, would take the Irish produce and say you will take in exchange children's toys. The Irish would reply 'We do not want children's toys', but the Germans would say, whether you want them or not, you are going to take them in exchange for your produce."

Aiken still did not learn what Roosevelt said, or educate his boss Dev with that information.

Lets face it, we let others do the heavy lifting in the defence of the free world, and to add insult to injury, our 2 leaders Dev and President Hyde commiserated on the death of Hitler. To our credit though, not all of us were as bad, hundreds of thousands of people did help directly or indirectly in the Allied war effort. Glad someone did.

Gonna ignore the SS behaviour - spin + selectivity, because there is an interesting discussion here.
I didn't know that my local TD James Dillon resigned as vice president of FG over neutrality. More or less shown the door by W.T. Cosgrave over a speech he made.

Nonetheless, when Dillon met with Cosgrave and other senior members of Fine Gael – Richard Mulcahy, Patrick McGilligan and Thomas F. O'Higgins – at party headquarters after the ard fheis, it was made clear that his speech was a resigning matter. He stood down as vice president of Fine Gael less than ten days after he had been elected. Cosgrave responded by saying, “A sense of duty has compelled you to pursue a particular course in relation to external policy in the emergency of which we could not, in the interests of the country, approve.”

Neutrality had overwhelming cross party support of a majority in the Dáil. Was there any other outspoken voices among TD's?

February 10th 1942 – James Dillon criticises Irish neutrality at Fine Gael ard fheis

Careful now, they'll accuse you of editing wikipedia!