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

The scheme was not approved by Justice Minister Gerry Boland, and a Department memorandum noted that the Minister feared “any substantial increase in our Jewish population might give rise to an anti-Semitic problem”.

However, following a visit from former Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog to his friend the Taoiseach Éamon de Valera, this decision was overruled, and the children were allowed in on condition that there was a guarantee that their stay would be for a short period only.

It was Dev who got them in in the first place.

There is no denying there was an Anti-Semitism problem in Ireland although they were protected by law here as far back as 1796 and had Daniel O'Connell advocating for them. I would suggest you read up on the Limerick Boycott of 1904. It is a topic that is best served in it's own thread.

There is no record of Dev denying Bergen-Belsen apart from Paul Bew's book which is only his opinion and has no evidence. I would suggest you look into Paul and his background and see why he might be biased. (Unless that's you Paul?)

every single search for that quote leads back to Bew's book. No primary source of Dev saying it.

Another one goes down in flames.

The rest of the world (except us of course) universally adopted and used the term "Nazi." It resulted in terms like Nazi economy, Nazi Germany, and Nazism.

The German members of that party officially called themselves National Socialists and their movement National Socialism (Nationalsozialismus).

Nationalsozialismus is a bit of a mouthful so everyone else in the world shortened it to Nazi.

I looked up a random dictionary and it says Nazi:

a member of a German fascist party controlling Germany from 1933 to 1945 under Adolf Hitler

 nazi: one who espouses the beliefs and policies of the German Nazis : fascist

Point is, Dev and his government did not allow the media use the term here, during the war.

The Russians are hardly likely to care about the bad things Churchill did as long as it didn't effect them.

It's a false equivalence. I'm not fan of Dev but he's insignificant outside of Ireland. Churchill on the other hand had a hand in world changing events. He's going to have a bigger historical footprint. That doesn't give him a free pass for the bad things he did or that we should ignore them. Dev the same.

If the Allies lost the war in the Atlantic, as could have happened, Dev could have had quite a bit influence out of Ireland in that the course of the war would have changed dramatically if the battle of the Atlantic, and hence the war in Europe, was lost.

I agree nobody deserves a totally free pass, everyone has their faults. And there is a danger of using 20th century morals to judge people worldwide 100, 200, 300 years ago.

You are dismissing him as a unionist, but have you proof of his current political views or are you guessing? Did you know he was once a member of the Workers' Party, then known as Official Sinn Féin?

Has anyone praised Dev as being a Saint here- or not without fault? I dont recall seeing that, most people here have criticised him at one point , just not obsessively.

ireland being neutral was not dictated by De Valera but supported by Leinster House and the people in elections so its ridiculous to paint him the sole person responsible for Ireland being neutral.

Bew is a unionist,[2] and in 2019 called for the British government to do more to champion the union and recommended introducing a Department of the Union.[14] He served as an "informal adviser" to David Trimble.[2] Trimble and Bew are both signatories to the statement of principles of the Henry Jackson Society,[15] which has been characterised as a neoconservative organisation

The next paragraph down on the Wikipedia article you just quoted.

He was also involved in the Boston Tapes fiasco where he is accused of using biased interviewee's to discredit Gerry Adams.

Curious what BBC reports on this found this...

Don't entirely agree with all of it, but it's another perspective…

Matter who can’t find a thread to interest him arrives! Get the beers out.

I would suggest the majority of posters haven't criticized him at all. one or two on either side side have gone off the deep end. They should get a room. I think he did good and bad.

But I can't cherry pick just the period of the war with Dev and go wasn't he great. I am unable to look past the war of independence, civil war then all the years after the war with economic stagnation and the power given to the church.

Yes I accept the context of the period. Different time, different values. He typifies 1950s Ireland for me.

One problem with Dev is his longevity in Irish politics, there's 60 odd years of good and bad to wade through. I wouldn't be a massive fan myself, I would similar to you in relation to the church, but his war time actions are mainly positive. I would be of the opinion that his visit to Hempel was more on a personal level and out of respect for him rather to for Hitler. That said it was the wrong move and he deserves criticism for it.

I think the main problem people have with Irish neutrality is that the most visible part of it was Dev's visit. No one knew of all the behind the scenes aid we gave to the Allies until years later.

It was not hard for any of the American administration to "smear" Ireland when Dev even objected to American troops going to N. Ireland on their way to Europe. It was not hard for them to "smear" Ireland when so many young American lives were lost in the Atlantic because of us. And not hard for them to smear us when Dev paid condolences on behalf of all of us , on the death of the most evil man ever.

• The New York Times, criticized de Valera's visit, suggesting that expressing grief for Hitler was morally outrageous and a misapplication of diplomatic protocol.
• The New York Herald Tribune denounced the gesture as “Neutrality gone mad,” framing it as a grotesque application of formalism in face of unprecedented moral horrors

.

Some of his sources:

He believed that he had better sources than the OSS. He had already reported to President Roosevelt that he was told on November 8, 1941, that Walshe was “a leading quisling”, and that Walshe “is hand in glove with the German Minister”.

Gray sent Roosevelt the transcript of this advice, which he, literally, thought was from out of this world. He believed his informant was the ghost of the late Arthur J. Balfour, who — as chief secretary for Ireland from 1887 to 1891 — had lived in the same Phoenix Park house where Gray was living.

A strong believer in spiritualism, Gray was holding seances, with the writing medium Geraldine Cummins, a Cork woman who would go into a kind of trance and write messages, supposedly from the spirit world. Gray thought this was more r

He held the grudge even after the war.

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.

The memoir has now been published under the title A Yankee in de Valera’s Ireland. Its real value is its insight into Gray’s twisted thinking. It is not a history, because Gray knew no more about history than he knew about diplomacy.

And who wrote this memoir? Why it's our old friend and Dev hater Lord Paul Bew!

Edit to add links.

More like Ghost.