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

It's an easy 'accusation' to back up. It's not hard to check if a Wiki page was edited, what the edit was, who edited it and when. I have edited pages more times than I can count on various pages detailing local events and heritage.

One of the more transparent sites in that regard. There was zero evidence in the history of the page in question that it was 'edited' to include what was claimed.

Nobody is denying there was majority support for neutrality, for most of the war anyway, in the 26 counties, during the war. It was different in N.I. of course.

The U.S. President, according to our own records even as early as 1941 said, and I quote "

 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."

Even the German bombing of the Synagogue or our clearly identifiable ships, with the loss of Irish lives, did not wake Dev up. to tell the Irish people.

If there was a free bar, paid by overseas Allies, there would be majority support for that as well.

Welcome back to the debate by the way, I thought you said you had left.

On the question of neutrality during the war, it would have been interesting to have had a Referendum then. We know than Dev had offered Irish neutrality in return for the use of our treaty ports, which Britain gave to us in 1938. The Americans wanted the use of the treaty ports too during the war.

If the question during a referendum had been " Do you want a United Ireland if the cost of same is allowing the Allies the use of the treaty ports, and all guaranteed by America", what would the result have been?

Not sure would there have been much support for neutrality then? Portugal, a neutral country, gave the Allies the use of the Azores to help them the Allies defend themselves in that part of the Atlantic.

Worth noting that hundreds of thousands of Irish helped the Allied war effort without any carrot of a U.I.

Neutrality was established as official policy before the outbreak of war. 1937-38
None of the main parties in the 3 General Elections from 1938 to 45 campaigned to end it.

But hundreds of thousands still joined the Allied war effort, with many people paying the ultimate price for freedom of the west.

If the question during a referendum had been " Do you want a United Ireland if the cost of same is allowing the Allies the use of the treaty ports, and all guaranteed by America", what do you think would have been the result?

Any fair appraisal, without the aid of hindsight, would have to accept it was an incredibly tricky time to negotiate for the government of a newly independent country.

That the entire Executive supported Neutrality (Bar Dillon, who may or may not have been playing to the high formerly Unionist numbers in his constituency) has to be key to this.
DeValera led a parliament, not just a political party, that supported Neutrality yet is the subject of bitter and unfair criticism. The most strident critics of it have all moved on, as early as 1946 too.

Must have been extraordinary for people to have listened to or read about this.

First Amendment of the Constitution Bill, 1939—First Stage. – Dáil Éireann (10th Dáil) – Saturday, 2 Sep 1939 – Houses of the Oireachtas

They were well aware of what invasion might mean and had very recent experience of how brutal a 'larger power' could be.

10 times you've posted that link trying to make out it was some big thing. No mention of the Three people that were killed in Carlow the day before or the 3 in Wexford 4 months previously! You didn't mention that the school or the Presbyterian church suffered more damage in the same attack!

That was the papers.

1–2 January 1941: bombs fell in Counties Meath, Carlow, Kildare, Wicklow, Wexford and Dublin.[15] In Meath, five bombs fell at Duleek and three at Julianstown, without casualties;[16][17] In Carlow, a house in Knockroe was destroyed, killing three people and injuring two others;[15][18] In Kildare three high explosive, as well as many incendiary, bombs fell in the Curragh area; two sea mines were dropped by parachute near Enniskerry in Wicklow; Ballymurrin in Wexford saw three German bombs fall without casualties;[15] and in Dublin, German bombs hit Terenure, two falling at Rathdown Park, with another two at Fortfield Road and Lavarna Grove,[1] with injuries but no loss of life.

I gave you all this information yesterday but you keep on spamming that one link trying to make out that it was targeted or that it wasn't reported!

After the war Winston Churchill said that "the bombing of Dublin on the night of 30 May 1941, may well have been an unforeseen and unintended result of our interference with 'Y'". He was speaking of the Battle of the Beams, wherein "Y" referred to the direction finding radio signals that the Luftwaffe used to guide their bombers to their targets.[28] The technology was not sufficiently developed by mid-1941 to have deflected planes from one target to another and could only limit the ability of bombers to receive the signals.

Even Churchill knew this. And the only Synagogue in the whole of Europe that compensation was paid for was Dublin.

With two CoI churches badly damaged it would have been wrong for DeV or anyone else to say one religion was targeted when it simply couldn't be sustained as a German objective.
It's just wise after the event desperate taunting really.

Did'nt have the ability? Never hear of the German "Baedeker" Raids (1942) - Hitler explicitly ordered attacks on historically and culturally significant British cities (e.g., Exeter, Bath, Norwich, and York). The goal was to bomb buildings marked with three stars in Baedeker tourist guidebooks.

That despite British cities were protected with proper anti-aircraft defences so airplanes could not fly low, certainly in comfort, and the raf's job was to stop the Luftwaffe bombing precise buildings, in fact bombing at all. The British also had blackouts. Our cities were lit up, with no airforce, and none of our very few little guns ever hit a German aircraft.

That said, it was still difficult to bomb precise buildings, because of the speed of the aircraft, crosswinds affecting the bombs etc. Even the 4 bombs meant for Amiens station ( now Connolly station) missed by 400 to 800 meters, and killed about 28 people.

Can you name the 50 countries and when they declared declared war on the Axis before they were attacked?

Are you referring to the post where I wrote "Some took a moral position. If you saw prisoners mis-treated by the Japanese or Germans you would understand why. Some countries even switched from the axis Powers to the Allies eg Italy.

According to wiki "Almost every country in the world participated in World War II. Most were neutral at the beginning, but relatively few nations remained neutral to the end."

The blue on the map are Axis, the light grey are neutral. Says it all."

Did Hempel ( Dev's Nazi friend and diplomat) ever express codolences for any of our ships sunk? For example, a German submarine sunk the Irish Pine, a ship we leased from the States but painted in the Irish colours, with the loss of 33 crew, mostly Irish?

The Synagogue got structurally damaged. The Presbyterian church did not.