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

"Self-governing dominion status"? No mention of the Irish War of Independence. Irish regiments in the British army were disbanded. Not sure if that happened with other Dominions. The British Army having to leave. And in 1937, a Constitution with an Irish president.

Seems that Churchill wasn't the only one taking the whole Irish Independence thing badly. As for the "mother nation" stuff, Ireland was a nation while Britain was a Roman colony. And as for England, named after a German tribe. It seems that like Churchill wasn't the only one dreaming of a time when Britain was great. If anything, WW2 solidified the position of the US as the dominant global power. A hundred years earlier, it and been the UK. To some people, Ireland's neutrality was a reminder of how times had changed.

The Belgian, French and British intelligence services had a copy of the initial German plan for the invasions of the low countries. A German aircraft strayed off course. The problem was that the Germans changed their plans while the British and French were basing some of their defence on the Case Yellow (Fall Gelb) plans. The Germans changed their plans and went through the Ardennes. A shabby Nazi trick as Captain Mainwaring would have called it. The Germans essentially used a new version of warfare (Blitzkrieg or combined arms) that worked well against armies expecting a repeat of WW1.

Hastings is actually quite a good historian on the human interest angle but he has a major problem with Ireland and its neutrality in WW2. In some resepects, the Irish War of Independence was the start of the end of the British Empire rather than the US War of Independence. Even now, the end game is playing out with devolved government in Scotland and Wales. Again, the GFA and the North were the precursors for that. And Scottish independence is back on the agenda.

Perception and reality are two different things and frequently different.

As you have found out here, your perceptions are bogus and groundless and feed your hate and anti-Irish agenda in almost everything involving Britain.

The Lough Erne base wasnt ready until February 1941 ! The Donegal corridor wouldnt have been much use in 1940.

You have tried to suggest had we abandoned neutrality in 1940 lives would have been saved even though we had no air bases on the west coast.

Hastings quote is ironic about bitter crews sailing past the Irish coast when that coast was mainly that of Northern Ireland in the case of the trans Atlantic convoys.

The cost in men and ships … ran up a score which Irish eyes a-smiling on the day of Allied victory were not going to cancel,’ wrote corvette officer Nicholas Monsarrat. ‘In the list of people you were prepared to like when the war was over, the man who stood by and watched while you were getting your throat cut could not figure very high.

The quote in the book is attributed to Nicholas Monsarrat. It is actually from a novel he wrote called The Cruel Sea!

Lough Erne was used by flying boats so there was not much construction to be done to a runway on a lake ffs. Permission to use the Donegal corridor was not granted until Jan. 1941.

It was me who pointed out last week that "It actually was not in use until Feb. 1941. The Germans sunk 1100 ships in the Atlantic, along with their contents and much loss of life,in 1940 alone. The base at Lough Erne was for flying boats only, and was initially supposed to be for air sea rescue."

Plenty of ships nearer the Irish coastline than the UK coastline when looking at a chart of ship losses from 1941.

Glad you finally accept the point there were "Plenty of ships nearer the Irish coastline than the UK coastline when looking at a chart of ship losses from 1941".

The public here in Ireland were kept ignorant of the war and Nazi actions : even the media could not use the word Nazi. And when the Concentration camps were exposed to the world in April 1945, the Irish public were kept as ignorant of it as most North Koreans are of the lifestyles and freedoms of South Koreans today.

Just because there is a free bar and everyone nearby votes to get drunk does not mean populist opinion is always the right thing to do.

Hundreds of thousands of people in Ireland volunteered to help the Allied war effort, directly or indirectly ; extremely few volunteered to help the Axis. It was the government to blame for our moral failure in WW2, and we were just lucky we could shelter behind the Allies and the Allies won. Otherwise we could all ( except Dev and co.) have ended up in slave labour Nazi concentration camps, like the captured Irish seamen.

The Atlantic “air gap” was significantly widened, and many lives and much tonnage lost in consequence of the fanatical loathing of Irish Prime Minister Eamon De Valera for his British neighbours. The crews of almost every warship and merchantman that sailed past the Irish coastline in the war years felt a surge of bitterness towards the country which relied on Britain for most of its vital commodities, and all of its fuel, but would not lift a finger to help in its hour of need.”

You are correct for once, there are lots of blue dots west of Donegal indicating losses but the black line indicating the outer extent of air cover extends much further to the west.

What the map shows among other things is that the air cover range was not as vital in 1940/41 as it was later with the use of aircraft fitted with radar. Look at the losses off the west coast of Africa within air cover range.

As for Lough Erne not needing a runway, obviously, but theres more to an airbase than the landing area, such as navigation equipment, staffing, comms etc. Fact is it wasnt operational until Feb 41 and even had we abandoned neutrality in 1940 how would that have provided a base any sooner to have any impact on losses in 1940.

May 17th was after the war in Europe ended. Even then, the Irish Times was (in the war years) the most pro-Allied ( or least anti-British) newspaper there was in the country. The censorship during the war in Europe was explained to you several times. The first Nazi death camp was liberated in summer 1944. Auschwitz in Jan '45. Others in April '45 etc. They were not allowed to be reported by Dev and his government here at the time.

Flying boats would have flown from Lough Erne a lot earlier than Feb 41 had they been allowed to use the Donegal corridor before that, given that " In 1940 alone the Allies lost 1000 ships in the Atlantic. Before that, the Luftwaffe frequently flew their Focke Wolf Condors over "Eire" (see “Scourge of the Atlantic” by Kenneth Poolman)"

The only reason Dev allowed the Allies to use the Donegal corridor was because

(a) Roosevelt wanted them to

(b) German Condors often flew over Ireland, and the only opposition they met was the occasional letter of protest.

(c) We had no aircraft capable of intercepting or defending our neutrality

No I did'nt but not the first time you made sometihng up / put legs on it.

Post no. 604 for context:

"The Americans had know that Hempel the Nazi had made thousands of radio transmissions during the war to Germany. Ever heard of "The American Note (1944)": The U.S. formally requested that Ireland expel the German and Japanese diplomatic staff, arguing the legations were actively used for intelligence operations against the Allies. Of course Dev refused.

N.B. Interestingly, the people bombed in Dublin said they survived the war by (quote) " Listening to the wireless and to the songs that won the war…..”we’ll meet again”, “white cliffs of dover”, “wish me luck as you wave me golodbye”,"

Quote "The artists they most favoured were, Vera Lynn, George Formby, Judy Garland, Gracie Fields, Bob Hope, Glen Miller, and many more."

It is like Francis McM blames de Valera and those dastardly FFers for Irish neutrality when all Francis wanted was for Irish men to die for Churchill so that Francis McM could say that they did their bit for king and country like the tens of thousands of Irishmen who died in WW1.

Many of them fell for the lies about Home Rule. Every excuse possible was used to postpone Home Rule and then the Unionists illegally imported over 25,000 weapons into Ireland while the UK government did nothing. Fools like John Redmond believed the promises. When Churchill talked about a United Ireland, Irish people were more cynical. Then it turned out that there was no offer of a United Ireland.

The comment from the Unionist PM of Northern Ireland about invading Ireland and installing a military government was hardly any different from the herrenvolk mentality of the Nazi party. Churchill wasn't that stupid.

How dare de Valera and the Irish government do what was in the best interests of the Irish people. Didn't de Valera know that he would be upsetting Francis?