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

You highlight the part of the quote and only remember the part you like. I look at the quote as a whole. The bit that includes for example how Canada "actively lobbied Dublin to abandon neutrality". Also "Canadian officials pushed strongly for Ireland to join the Allied cause, emphasizing the geopolitical and naval importance of the island to the survival of the United Kingdom."

I also looked at the bit you highlighted in bold. Much fairer to quote the whole lot as I did, without editing any in bold.

US soldiers were forbidden to cross the border without permission. Of course this was ignored as there were attractions and things available that weren't in 'at war' NI..

I was involved with an RTE programme here documenting people's stories of the time. One long believed story got debunked by one elderly man.
A famous fire and brimstone RC priest used patrol the cinema here with a cane, ensuring no boys and girls sat 'dangerously' together. It attracted media interest etc and it was always assumed he was just a moral conservative.
The elderly contributor however had a different story, he was protecting girls from wily American soldiers who had snook across the border seeking fun times with more innocent girls. 😁

Castle Archdale further into Fermanagh is good too, bigger display and closely connected to Lough Erne

And was pointed out around the second or third time it was posted it was as a result of leaks from American ambassador David Gray to try pressure De Valera to close the German embassy. He was persuaded to drop this campaign by William Donovan, head of the OSS and founder of the CIA as it jeopardised US and British spy operations involving the Irish.

The New York Times warned, the German legation might pass on information that would “endanger the lives of many thousands of Allied soldiers, including many of Irish descent”. Amidst this hysterical coverage, de Valera was depicted as indifferent to the Allies’ plight. Joe Walshe visited London and “protested vigorously” to J. Russell Forgan, who was acting head of European operations for the OSS in David Bruce’s temporary absence.

“Although I agreed with him completely,” Forgan wrote to me in 1970, “I had to say that if we told the actual facts, all of the wonderful work that his intelligence services had been doing with the Allies would be ruined. He saw the point immediately.”

The Irish had provided some “very useful” co-operation on intelligence matters, Forgan assured me. “In general, despite the American news media,” he emphasised, “the Irish worked with us on intelligence matters almost as if they were our allies. They have never received the credit due them.”

Gray hated Dev and never missed an opportunity to try discredit the Irish.

After retiring, Gray persisted with what had become an obsession to discredit de Valera, this time by writing his critical memoir. He spent years on it, but then he suddenly abandoned the project around 1960, because, he said, the ghost of Roosevelt had advised him to forget it.

Not the first time he quoted ghosts either.

Shortly after arriving in Dublin in Apr 1940, Gray wrote to US president Franklin D Roosevelt about “the memories and the ghosts” in his official residence in Phoenix Park, where the late British prime minister Arthur J Balfour had lived in the 1880s. Balfour had held seances with the famous medium Geraldine Cummins of Cork. She would go into a trance and write out supposed messages from ghosts. She began holding seances for Gray.

On Nov 8, 1941, Balfour’s ghost supposedly warned Gray about Joe Walshe, secretary of the Department of External Affairs. “He, from what I can see, is hand and glove with the German Minister,” the message read.At a further seance on Dec 2, 1941, Cummins produced a message from the late US president Theodore Roosevelt. “I want to tell you,” Cummins wrote, “that I think Franklin will hold the Japs for a while; at any rate from our country’s point of view. I see no immediate Armageddon for young America, possibly not at all.”

This was the Tuesday before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, but Gray’s belief that he was in touch with ghosts was unshaken. “Four days after this communication,” Gray wrote to Franklin D. Roosevelt, “the Japs attacked Pearl Harbor. They had TR fooled. I suspect that if these communications come through pretty much as given our friends on the other side don’t know very much more than they did on this side.”

These long winded political anecdotes about ghost and grudges with DeValera are not needed. Devs own actions condemned his own legacy and by association Irish Neutrality.

Condemned by who? Most of it was during the war period when people only knew what was being leaked to the press. The people who really knew what was happening with Irish cooperation have been quoted here plenty of times. The whole point of this thread is to determine whether criticism was unfair. With everything that is known about Ireland's actions during the war do you think Dev was right or wrong with his stance on neutrality? It seems the only thing to hold against him personally is his visit to Hempel's house on Hitler's death, and for the avoidance of doubt here, even though his motives were meant to be sympathy to Hempel and not for Hitler I fully understand the backlash.

An estimated 70 to 85 million people died during World War II, including about 40 million civilians. It is also a fact, not an opinion, that World War II was initiated by Nazi Germany, led by Adolf Hitler, when it invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. This act of aggression prompted the UK and France to declare war on Germany on September 3, 1939. Fact.

You may think we done the right, moral thing throughout the war, but many people died in the mid Atlantic gap who would disagree with you.

You still have have clarified if you would have liked a German victory or not, like some other Republicans who you defended like Sean Russell.

Would you have preferred if more of the map below was coloured blue (Axis) or grey (neutral like us)?

You may think we done the right, moral thing throughout the war, 

The goal was to protect Ireland and it's people.

Yes. I think, all things considered, and without slanting, spinning, lying or misrepresenting the actual facts and realising that hindsight was not available to the decision makers, it was the 'right' thing to do and I support our neutrality.

I understand that is not eveyone's view and you could if you want blame us for death's, but as has been pointed out you can go back further and blame those death's on others with equal cause.
In any conflict situation, I will always put the primary blame on those who had the power to prevent that conflict in the first place.

AI is not the world! Use links to back your point up!

The world saw Dev as very morally questionable

The 'world' saw many different people as 'morally questionable and changed their opinion;
Gandhi, Mandela, Luther King spring to mind.

I'm not giving Dev their stature, my point about him is the 'world' soon got over it, and in a few years too as shown by the facts.
The world has almost totally forgotten what happened here bar a few still bitter, frankly, under-researched people on the internet.
Here's some AI Chat to prove it. 😁

The Irish contributed alot of men to the allied cause, that is not in question but the consequences in the country if the government had committed to ally with the British and allied forces is. We dont know what would have happened if De Valera had take the unpopular route of not being neutral. No political party at that time here supported that stance.

Stop diverting about Ghandi etc. Nobody has changed their views about Hitler. Hitler was no Ghandi. Hitler is still thought of as the most evil man in the world ever.

And who in the world commiserated over him? Dev.

Okay, let's try this,

How would Ireland have abandoned neutrality when there was no political party calling for it and the majority of the country were in favour of it?

What do you think should have happened?

I want your opinion and any ideas you have on how it would work and we can work out different scenarios.

There are no right or wrong answers but, bear in mind,we are talking about the period during the early war so you only have access to information available at that time.

Edit: Take your time, think it through I'm not expecting an answer straight away.