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

Our decision to stay neutral was entirely reasonable given the state of animosity that existed between ourselves and Britain at the time. Any fair criticism of what Dev did has to concede what we suffered over many centuries.

Interesting that despite the so called neutrality some misguided Irish people were actively working with the Nazi for a German victory. I wonder what the Irish people in Nazi slave concentration camps would have thought of them

It is of course known that communications to Germany ( regarding Allied activity in N. Ireland etc) was not just sent from Hempel and his team during the war.

For example, this is about Jim O'Donovan friend of Sean Russell and head of explosives in the IRA, and weekly radio information to Germany:

Quote:

"Yet despite all this, Jim O'Donovan was falling under Hitler's spell. In fact, during the early years of the war, he became increasingly interested in Nazi ideology and visited Germany three times.

Speaking for the first time about his father's work with the Nazis, Gerard O'Donovan - who was a young boy during the conflict - told me how he still remembers one regular wartime visitor to their home in Dublin:

"There was a room off the dining room where there was a radio transmitter. A man used to come every Saturday and send messages to Germany on that radio… and we children used to call (him) Mr Saturday Night."

Jim O'Donovan died in 1979 without, according to those who knew him, any regrets about his involvement with the Nazis."

Sean Russell of course died on a Nazi submarine which was supposed to drop him back off the coast of Ireland. How many trips did that submarine make, if any?

Thats whataboutery. We are talking about this country during WW2. In an attempt to deflect from Sean Russell and the weekly IRA facilitated radio transmissions to Germany during the war, are you comparing us to our neighbouring island where the future Queen there trained and worked full time as a mechanic and driver during the war. According to reports, she wasn't given preferential treatment and went through the same rigorous mechanical training as other recruits.

What has your whataboutery got to do with neutrality and this country?

The IRA had a lot to do with our neutrality during the war, because of their - err - actions against or with the 2 sides in the war. We know of course (although probably many Irish people do not) that between Jan 1939 March 1940, the IRA carried out approximately 300 bombing and sabotage operations, mostly on the British mainland. We know the Nazis tried to and did co-operated to some extent with the IRA during the war (after all, Sean Russell was on the German submarine).

So instead of whataboutery with other countries, how about reflecting on what some people in this country did to affect neutrality?

And it appears they helped them with weekly radio transmissions to Germany? I suppose you think that was no harm? On another thread you defended Sean Russell. Not surprising as you are a S.F. supporter. Do you commend or condemn the people who worked with the Nazis?

Deflect from what? This thread is about our neutrality and WW2. The 300 bombings and acts of sabotage the IRA carried out in 1939 and 1940 were noticed by governments here and overseas, even if you did not know about them. Must have had an influence on our neutrality and how it was perceived. Similarily, the sending of WEEKLY unauthorized radio reports to Germany from an IRA safe house in Ireland during the war must have been a breach of neutrality?

NO. They should have known everything that was happening with the Nazis - a subscription to Apple News would have given this information. And sure the Brits were a great bunch of lads - Dev should have been the bigger man and forgiven them for wanting to execute him, and executed his mates. And that economic war in the 1930’s was a bit ridiculous - those English land lords who occupied the land were in the right and should still be receiving rents.

Francis, NOTHING influenced our decision to be neutral. Events affected it, but NOTHING influenced it.
We started the war neutral, ended the war neutral and we are still neutral despite how some perceive it.

*

Similarily, the sending of WEEKLY unauthorized radio reports to Germany from an IRA safe house in Ireland during the war must have been a breach of neutrality?

Your argument is getting thin. It would have been a 'breach' if the government were sending the messages.
Once again you show the classic affliction of 'a little knowledge being a dangerous thing'.

Dev's friend, 

And it's back to 'Dev' and his 'exonerated' 'friend'.

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On the radio transmitter issue, they had to be powerful enough to reach Germany. Used in a fixed location or even an area. they could be triangulated and found. There was also a problem in that they had schedules because some of them used atmospheric effect ("skip") and those effects only happened in the at night and in the early morning. They allowed relatively low power transmissions to reach much farther than they would otherwise. HAM radio and CB radio operators still use the same effect today. Some agents even had a schedule. G2 and the Irish army had set up a number of monitoring operations that enabled the locations of the transmitters to be identified. It was illegal to possess a transmitter in Ireland during WW2.

Because of the effectiveness of the monitoring of transmissions, the Abwehr had to also use other techniques such as letters and postcards. The post in and out of Ireland was also being monitoried. One very innovative German technique, the microdot, photographically reduced a large amount of data to a dot the size of a punctuation mark on a newspaper article. The agents could carry their instructions using these microdots in newspaper artcles and would have less evidence that they were agents. These dots were then readable with a microscope. The technique was identified by Richard Hayes.

Even in occupied Europe, the operational lifetime of a radio operator was short (I think that it was only a few weeks) because of the effectiveness of monitoring by the Germans. The UK had a radio interception service that also made it diffult to for German agents to operate transmitters.In Ireland, G2, the Irish army and Allied intelligence organisations were always searching for illegal transmissions.

"Over 80 years on and de Valera is still…" says you. 80 years on and Dev is still remembered for being clueless about Hitler and his camps, who he did not tell us as they were liberated and exposed to the world, never mind condemn. Dev even refused to let media here use the word Nazis. 

De Valera's gesture – unique among leaders of neutral nations in the final weeks of the Second World War – attracted widespread international condemnation.

Your lack of knowledge is showing up. Most of those interned in the UK were "foreigners", especially those of German etc extraction. The same was done with Japanese people in California in WW2. The UK was right to intern, given the IRA had carried out 300 explosions / acts of sabotage, mostly in Britain, in 1939 and 1940.

Given the diversions and pivots, not even de Valera would offer condolences for Francis McM's credibility at this stage of the thread. Even Maffey said that de Valera's decision was mathematical. He was, in that sense, logically observing protocol however impolitic it may have been.

Oswald Mosley and some of the British Union of Fascists were interened as was one MP. You seem quite pro-British and anti-Irish neutrality. Do you think that Irish independence was a mistake and that Ireland should still be part of the UK?

Back to Francis McM trying to represent a Canadian cartoon he found on the Web as a reliable source on Axis intelligence reports. Apart from the linkspam aspect, it points to a distinct lack understanding even when the reality has been repeatedly explained.

The bullying was done by Germany in dropping 50 bombs on us, sinking our neutral shipping and sending Irish seamen to Hitler's slave labour concentration camps when captured.

We did not to much to help victims of the war, or even to help the Irish who survived Hitler's concentration camps, did we? Only offer condolences to Nazi party member Hempel on Hitler's suicide and tell him he was safe in Ireland from Allied questioning, and don't worry, we will not let in Jewish refugees.