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

Post 1703 was not an insinuation, it was a fact.

Anecdotes may sell books but they are NOT facts.
Have you not being schooled in this already?

Gray's anecdote that you extensively used prior to this that you spun and escalated to FDR 'throwing knives' at a diplomatic meeting.😁😁

Here we go again, it seems

None of his staff were of the same opinion as him. There are no facts in the book only his opinions, many of which are formed from seance's he held and Information from ghosts. Don't believe me? Here he it is in his own words

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.”

In fairness we've just spent nearly 60 pages arguing with someone and their Imaginary wartime friends 🤣

You had 2 other boards.ie accounts the mods found out about.

Many of us had relatives who lived through the war years, with great stories to tell.

I'm out and about on my phone but here's the us state department report

Facts are something that are easily verified. Read what I wrote. It was insights " in to what the American ambassador in Ireland during the war thought of Ireland."

Here is the post I believe you are referring to :

You should read Gray's book. Some very interesting insights in to what the American ambassador in Ireland during the war thought of Ireland. Dev was a bit rude replying to his speech in Irish when Gray, like most people, could not speak Irish.

"Why Mr de Valera replied to my English speech in Irish was a question not difficult to answer. Both languages are sanctioned by the new Constitution, but Mr de Valera and his Separatist group were anxious to impress on the outside world that English is only an unfortunate and temporary makeshift and that Irish is the true and natural tongue of the nation, though today only one person in six speaks it. Very few Irish politicians speak Irish except as American High School students learn to ‘speak’ French, but they usually begin their speeches with a paragraph in Irish, which they have memorised, and then continue in English. It is the badge of being ‘Irish’ Irish, like the Gaelicisation of proper names.
1916 leaders turned out in tails and white tiesThe official dinner in the state apartments of the Castle that evening was as elaborate and well done as the ceremony in the morning. Food, wines, service, cigars, all were unexceptionable. The de Valera revolution had been to a large extent a ‘social movement’. It appealed to the ‘common man’ and repudiated the symbols of privilege. Mr de Valera banned the ‘topper’ and wore the black ‘cowboy’ hat. He and his Cabinet constituted the surviving nucleus of ‘The Sixteen’ and the left-wing IRA faction that had staged the Civil War. Almost every man present had been condemned to death or jail either by the British government or by the Free State government, yet only eight years after coming to power this new aristocracy had all turned out in tails and white ties in the best London tradition, I had never sat down to dine with so many people who had been ‘martyred’ and thrown into prison, nor with so many politicians, who after having been down and out had ‘come back in’ and stayed ‘in’. It had its embarrassing side. It was like dining in a house in which there has been a highly publicised domestic difficulty."

Back to the point. Do you not think

It should be the current German government demanding the return of the (Nazi) gold if anyone should?

I then wrote "to give to relatives of victims. But hard to prove the gold in question was actually plundered, and exactly from whom. And anyway, Germany wants to sell BMW and VW and Mercedes in Portugal."

If you are out and about now, no need for an immediate, detailed reply. 😉

"What is really interesting are all the facts in the book from the period".

Did I say that was not the case? You should read the book. It appears the American ambassador and others in his office in Dublin were all of the same opinion that the Irish government was hoping for a Nazi victory.

Same conclusion as the FBI came to in the States after it listened to Aiken's talks and speeches for a few weeks, after the Americans tricked him in to waiting a few weeks in America for his meeting with Roosevelt. He told Aiken it was reported that he said Ireland had nothing to fear from a German victory.

Would people have been happy if we joined the allies at the very end of the war when we sat out the majority? I just dont see the point of that, what would it change?

We only really had animosity after 1946 with the worst of the worst, Soviet union and didn't seem to have any other negatives. Probably only difference would be we may have joined Nato if we have given up neutrality.

These claims about Aiken and others were nonsense though. The government started cooperating with the British immediately after September 1st, 1939 (in secret) and the Donegal Corridor was established. By May / June 1940, cooperation had intensified and an agreement reached that if the Germans invaded, British troops would be allowed enter Éire in order to help repel them.

I saw that earlier. Two peas in a pod. Starting to think that maybe Francis and Paul are the same person.

Dermot Ferriter's review of David Grey's ( U.S. ambassadors to Ireland) memoir.

lol lol.

Did you not know Dermot Ferriter's book "Judging Dev", sparked a heated, years-long debate among Irish historians. Even author Tim Pat Coogan published a scathing critique of the book in History Ireland, "labeling it a work of cunning hagiography and accusing Ferriter of suppressing historical truths to portray Éamon de Valera favorably."

You should read the Ambassador's actual memoir, not some biased Irish persons opinion of him.

Tim Pat Coogan famously has a hatred of DeValera though. I wouldn't think that Ferriter has a particularly pro-DeValera bias but Coogan definitely has an anti-Dev bias.

Both Coogan and Ferriter take a balanced, contextual view of Irish neutrality incidentally.

I'm not aware of any Irish historian who takes Grey's propaganda campaign at face value. Even Roy Foster, who isn't thrilled about Irish neutrality in WWII, called it "political pragmatism".

Wrong. The Donegal corridor was not created until 1941. The Germans had sunk over 1100 ships in the Atlantic in 1940 alone. Even when it was created, after pressure from the Americans to create it, , Dev and his government insisted to pacify the Germans, these aircraft were supposed to follow a defined route and then only on air/sea rescue missions.