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

More copy and paste from you, and debunked already. As regards the distance between Cobh / Berehaven and the U-boat bases in France - please do not expect us to believe that U—boats from France would have been on the prowl for spotter sea planes from Cobh? It was the other way around : the U-boats were afraid of planes. As pointed out to you already and it was in some books but you did not read them, the Treaty ports were suitable for seaplanes as well as sea going vessels. German U-boats were extremely afraid of Allied airplanes, and rightfully so. While Allied aircraft crews respected the danger of a U-boat's anti-aircraft guns, the overall dynamic was highly in favour of the aircraft and what it could do in more ways than one. The Allies also developed ways and means of defending their ports.

As regards the Germans reaching the northern convoy routes, yes the s.w. corner of Ireland would have been of great value as a base from which aircraft could locate those u-boats going to and fro. No wonder the British Admiralty, together with the dominions office in London which was involved in war-time planning, came up with a figure of 5070 British sailors lives lost as a result of Irish neutrality.

Their declaration of war had absolutely nothing to do with morals. Britain declared war because her hegemony was under threat from an emergent Germany.

Not emphasised enough IMO.

The colonists and imperialists hid behind the 'freedom of small nations' nonsense. Britain and the US did the same as Germany - acted in their own selfish interests and only acted/responded when those interests were threatened as you say.
We acted in our own interests too and we were able to survive as a country as a result of a brave and resolute 'national' government decision.

You debunked nothing though, a lower Lough Erne site was identified in Dec 1940 by air survey and permission to fly out via Donegal Corridor granted Jan 1941. If you have any sources to the contrary please share them, lols and omfgs dont count.

As for your questions about the sinkings indicated by the blue dots west of Donegal the map shows they were well inside the existing air cover range so imaginary bases in the west of Ireland wouldnt have prevented those losses.

There was very little that the UK or France could have done about the German invasion of Poland.

Indeed, but Britain and France's declaration of war had nothing to do with Poland. It was all about Germany. They had no intention of doing anything with regards to Polish sovereignty and their guarantee only came about in the first place because Hitler made fools of the British with Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain's "Peace for our time" proved not to be the case. The fact of the matter is that both Britain and France had had abysmal relations with Poland in the interwar years as they had repeatedly snubbed (sometimes with legitimate reasons) British and French approaches with regards to an entente because of western fears about German power. Unfortunately for both Britain and France, their declaration didn't have the desired effect of halting Hitler and was instrumental in kicking off another European wide war.

The speed at which Germany took over most of mainland Europe and even
removed the British Expeditionary Force from mainland Europe may have
been a major influence on the policy of Irish neutrality because by
early 1940, Germany had successfully invaded most of mainland Europe
within a matter of months.

Bewegungskrieg caught everyone by surprise at how effective it was, including the Germans ironically, and it certainly put the fear of god into their enemies and potential enemies. For us and others, it did look for a time that Germany couldn't be stopped. But crossing a large mass of water was an entirely different matter to warfare on the continent. Even in 1940, it became obvious that the Wehrmacht was land army and Churchill etc had known that crossing the channel was out of the question. He even said "I'm not saying that they won't come. But they won't come by sea lion". He was entirely correct, of course, as the Germans had no equipment to support a seaborne invasion of anywhere. The Rhine river barges they had lined up on the French coast for deceptive purposes would have floundered mid channel. The reality was that Britain's greatest defence wasn't the RAF, the Royal Navy, or chain home. It was simply a body of water. Once that light had been shone on Germany, Ireland breathed a sigh of relief.

There was also a pro-armistice element in British politics that thought
that the UK should seek an armistice with Germany and Halifax had
approached the Italians to see if there were possible terms.It could all
have turned out very differently.

There were many within the British establishment that had genuine sympathies with Germany and they feared more a Soviet influenced Europe than a Nazi influenced one. Previous to the Czech crisis in 1938, many within the corridors of power in White Hall thought that if there was going to be war in Europe, it was better that it was contained in the east and the west kept out of it. Few establishment Britons would have cared too much if Germany and Russia spent the next half decade knocking ten shades out of one another. But Hitler's full take over of Czechoslovakia changed that and that insult was hard to take for the British, hence a pretty reckless "guarantee" to Poland which, according to Liddel-Hart, practically guaranteed nothing but war.

We acted in our own interests too

The difference is that we acted in the only way that was open to us. Neutrality really was the only option as far as the nation was concerned, but we didn't stop anyone from going over to Britain and joining up, even if they were doing so more for mercenary reasons than moral ones.

My father was one of those who hopped on the boat to Liverpool in 1943 at the tender age of 16.

You may not have heard of the Azores in the war but it was part of neutral Portugal but became an important Allied base during the war. Unlike Ireland which the Germans dropped about 50 bombs on, Portugal was not bombed.

You left the thread earlier but you came back. It is a fact you defended your fellow Republican Sean Russell on another thread. It is also a fact he died on a German U-boat, having tried to collaborate (on behalf of the IRA), with the Germans. You refused to condemn that of course, shure Sean was doing the right thing.

Absolutely agree.
The unfair criticism and refusal to emphatise with leaders making decisions under duress and without the benefit of hindsight has completely failed here as it did before on several occasions.
It is a pity Francis didn't have Maryishere and Janfebmar here anymore to support them. They both had the exact same opinions on Dev as Francis.
I even told Maryishere what I thought of Russell, as she liked to badger about him when stuck.

Janfebmar was also very upset about Dev:

Do not know what you are talking about there, but it is known and revealed by a mod you had other accounts like Happyman42 and Alf. You even admitted it too. Not sure how many other accounts you may or may not have had on this thread: certainly earlier in this thread I caught you and another poster on at exactly the same times, always thanking each other and writing in the same style with the same opinions. When I pointed it out the other poster suddenly stopped for a while!

Not all of the losses can be "pinned" as you say on neutral Ireland. Only 5070 British lives and that was throughout the entire war. The British would ideally have flown over Ireland in 1939 when war broke out, but our neutrality was our neutrality. The agreement for the Donegal Corridor was finally agreed in Jan 1941 but the British had to fly around the top of Donegal in order to get to the Atlantic before that, which used more fuel but more importantly mean they could not reach as far out in to the Atlantic and had much less time to spend there. The reason they could not "take the short cut" and fly over Donegal before that was because of our strict neutrality. Permitting foreign military aircraft to openly cross sovereign territory directly violated our neutrality policy. When it was finally agreed in early 1941, it was supposed to be for air-sea rescue missions only, planes were supposed to fly "at good height" over the short stretch of neutral Co. Donegal, planes were supposed not to fly over Finner camp, planes were required to keep to the narrow corridor, pilots were not supposed to talk about it etc.

Even though it was supposed to be secretive, Germany knew about it almost immediately, through its espionage and intelligence network in Ireland. Lord Haw-Haw, even taunted the Allies on his Germany Calling radio broadcasts by referring to the lumbering Allied flying boats as "swans on Lough Erne".

Germany could not say much though, as it had violated our airspace hundreds of times with their Condor aircraft on their reconnaissance flights trying to locate the convoys, especially early in the war. Some even crashed in Cork, Kerry etc.

One thing the Admiralty (and other government departments it co-operates with) did not do is pluck anything out of the air. It was highly respected around the world for its professionalism and attention to detail.

I think the German focus, and especially Hitler, was always eastward. He probably had a delusion of Britain agreeing an armistice, Had Britain and France not given Poland a commitment to come to their aid in the event of an invasion by Germany it is possible that the war might have been restricted to the east.

Incidentally, Chamberlain made it cleat to the Poles that regarding conflict with the Soviets, that the UK was , and would remain, "neutral', i.e. that the commitment for military aid only applied to an attack by Germany and not USSR. It is also worth remembering that Poland was no innocent party to conflict in all this. In 1938, along with Germany, it invaded territories in Czechoslovakia.

Once the major powers made it clear that they were not interested in the enforcement of the rule of law in international affairs vis a vis the Italian invasion of Ethiopia , De Valera considered that the League of Nations was effectively dead and that no reliance could be placed of the major powers. In those circumstances the only rational policy a small nation could pursue was one of neutrality.

And after Pearl Harbour very few neutral countries left in the world. ( grey on map below)

And by the time of Hitler's death, only one Prime Minister in the world expressed condolences on it. Ours.

That's all it was essentially, a sensationalist guess to deflect from their own failings and incompetence. They made many blunders in WW2 that cost many lives.

The debunked number is still being repeated.The lives and shipping lost because the Germans were reading the BAMS messages and using it to target convoys. That was more significant than any argument the poster can offer about Irish neutrality.

The BAMS messages were being read by the Germans until at least late late 1942 with the ciphers only being replaced by mid 1943. During all that time from the start of the war until then, the Germans had the details of the convoys, their routes, and the diversions. It could not use all of the decrypts but the British were unaware of the compromise for years. Without that information, Allied shipping losses might have been less. That is very different from the poster's wibbling about the Irish Treaty Ports.

In simple terms, it cost Allied lives.