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

Source your claims

By inventing, spinning, telling mistruths over and over again they have massively proved the point - criticism is unfair.

Yes but 50 countries didn't join in the war against the Axis before they were attacked unless they were bound by treaties to do so or part of the British Empire. Even the US didn't until they were attacked by Japan.

We were bombed on numerous occassions by the Germans during the war and our ships sunk. Because Dev or nobody told you our ships were sunk does not mean they were not targeted and sunk, with loss of life.

After Pearl harbour, most countries in the world turned against the Axis powers. You were probably brought up to believe most countries were neutral. They were not.

The blue are the axis countries. Light grey - if you can see them - are the neutral.

Carlow is not in Dublin last time I looked etc. lol. The Synagogue was structurally damaged, the Presbyterian church was not, a few window were broken.

Talking about censorship, did you know Dev forbidded media outlets from reporting on the many tens of thousands of Irish men who volunteered to fight in the British and Allied armies. Furthermore, stories detailing Nazi and Japanese atrocities in occupied territories were actively censored…because he was afraid they would provoke Ireland to abandon neutrality. People in the free State here were kept in the dark about what was really happening. No wonder so many left after the war.

Underneath the headline it says "7 trapped in Dublin houses rescued". In this bombing of the Jewish quarter in Dublin, the Synagogue was damaged more than any other public building.

Not much on the net about it but it did happen.

In the link it says "there was an awful lot of anti-jewish policy in Dublin in them days" so no surprise Dev did not tell the country about it or meet the people who used to worship there.

Dev did not even tell people when Irish flagged ships were sunk and ordinary Irish people were killed at sea by German submarines.

It was suspected the reason Amiens st station or Eamon st or whatever you want to call it ( now Connolly Station) was bombed by the Germans was because Irish people were going up to Belfast in their thousands every month to join the British forces. Of course the bombs missed by 400 - 800 meters and became known as the North Strand bombings, which killed 34 and injured 100 or whatever. Lord Haw Haw told us it would happen and it did.

The Synagogue on Dublin's Jewish quarter was not mentioned at all even though it was the first public building damaged in Dublin. Not saying it should be the main headline in the paper, but you brought up the paper - where is the mention.

Of course nobody can prove it was deliberate. Nobody can prove the German sinking of the Irish Pine, an Irish flagged ship all painted up with large tricolours etc by a German submarine was deliberate, but it did happen.

German planes may have been steered off course by British radio waves sometimes but German planes knew when they were over Irish cities because there was no blackout, unlike UK cities.

An elderly German living in Canada and known only Heinrich did claim to have been one of the pilots who bombed Dublin and asked for forgiveness, but the ramblings of that elderly gentleman must be taken with a pinch of salt as it was a clear night over Dublin, the was no blackout over Dublin (unlike Belfast) and Dublin bay is very different to the coast near Belfast. Plus if he circled over Belfast rather than Dublin there would have been more flak, searchlights etc.

Also, if you think the bombing of Dublin was an accident, why did Lord Haw Haw warn about it / predict it from Germany?

Do not insult peoples intelligence.

The German pilot ( or so he claimed he was ) who apologised on RTE in 1998 for bombing the North Strand / Connolly Station area in Dublin over 50 years previously muddied the moral waters by expressing admiration for Hitler. He thought Hitler " was a very kind man". He said "I say he was a weakling because he was too kind." And Heinrich did not express any sorrow for the people of Belfast, supposedly the real target that night, who endured two nights of Luftwaffe raids the previous month in which almost 1,000 civilians were slaughtered by many Luftwaffe bombers.

So not sure I'd trust such a man who claimed he was a pilot over 50 years previously.

Wonder if he was the same pilot who bombed the Synagogue in Dublin on a different mission?

First Nazi Bomb Dropped on Dublin Wrecks Synagogue - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

If so, not surprising he did not say sorry for that if he was such a great admirer of Hitler.

There were plenty of other attacks predicted by Lord Haw Haw ( an Irishman called Joyce) from Germany. Someone recollects " "I also remember Joyce complaining that the Irish were shipping cattle to Britain from the docks at Dundalk and threatened that it would be bombed if this continued," Colonel Flynn said. "And my father and I were in Dundalk the night a German aircraft bombed the quayside there a few days later. It was a clear night and we actually saw the plane coming in from the north." Dundalk, a tiny port on the Irish east coast, was indeed shipping cattle to Britain during the war."

Top pic shows the 'blast damage' to the Synagogue, while the others show the much more extensive damage to other buildings that took 'direct' hits.

The Synagogue was NOT the first building 'HIT' because it WAS NOT hit, it was damaged like other buildings by the 'blast' of bombs.

Exploiting the victims for a pathetic agenda never gets old for some.

So you don't know the difference between blast damage and a direct hit from a bomb.

Just shocking stubbornness to admit you have not a single shred of evidence for your claims not to mention a brass neck.

And even if you were totally correct none of it brought us into the war because we were neutral and remained so and remain so until this day.

And whole swathes of buildings were damaged to varying degrees. Some destroyed. Both the Synagogue and Pres church buildings still stand today.

So they refused to be bullied or bought by US or British pressure and maintained our policy of neutrality which pertains to this day.

And the Presbyterian church is now a Mosque, the Barracks is now a College, cities change, what is your point?

The other reports about the meeting betwen Aiken and Roosevelt are consistent with the summary of the report in the Examiner. Nobody else ever questioned the Examiner on that afaik.

The cartoon was from Montreal. It is mentioned in more than one place online eg https://www.reddit.com/r/PropagandaPosters/comments/wm90dj/1944_cartoon_by_john_collins_editorial_cartoonist/