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

I agree with you. But Germany didn't attack Belfast until 1941 so there was no fighter protection there until then. Only them did they put fighter cover there. But It wasn't attacked after that. So on basis, the risk to southern ports would be low and none in 1940. Though the risk is constantly over stated on this thread.

It was politically unviable so it's moot anyway.

So you condoned (in another thread) Sean Russell in his activities on behalf of the IRA in collaborating with the Nazis, and in this thread you have blamed Britain dozens of times for starting the second world war, and you now blame Britain who you say "royally fucked up in that war"….we know you hate Britain but what has that to do with Irish neutrality?

N.B. I do not think Britain "royally fucked up in that war" that much as it won the war, and its casualties were not as high as those of Germany or Russia. Not bad considering it and its Commonwealth were basically the only countries standing alone against Germany at one stage in the war. I think even all the Axis powers would agree that Britain and its commonwealth behaved very honourably towards them during the war / second to none among any of the countries involved. If you want to know how the Axis countries treated prisoners then that information is available.

Quite something to sit on your hands doing nothing while complaining about others actually doing something. Theres no credibility in that.

Looking the other way isn't defending anything.

Just under twenty years before the outbreak of WW2, Ireland had fought a War of Independence against the UK.

In the WW1, approximately 35,000 Irishmen were killed.

There was an economic war in the 1930s.

And even with all that, tens of thousands of Irish men and women served in the UK forces and tens of thousands more worked in the UK.

Ireland,despite being neutral, cooperated with Allied intelligence.

Ireland was promised Home Rule and fools like John Redmond believed the promises. The UK government did everything possible to postpone it. Unionists illegally imported around 25,000 weapons from Germany in 1914. The UK government did nothing about it.

Ireland was neutral and that was a policy supported by the Irish people. Even so, there was considerable support given to the UK and the Allies.

The UK did not win WW2. Without the US, the UK would probably have been forced to seek an armistice and Halifax did, in 1940, ask the Italians to see if terms were available.

It was US supplies and support that allowed the UK to keep fighting. Do the people who question Irish neutrality also question the neutrality of Switzerland or Sweden in WW2?

Irish neutrality obviously upsets a certain cohort of people in Ireland. It may also upset some people in the UK who consider that Ireland owed the UK. The reality is that Ireland was neutral and that is a historical fact that those people, no matter how much they complain, cannot change.

That the best justification you can think of for looking the other way?

If the U-boats got the Upper hand in the battle of the Atlantic in say 1940 and stopped supplies getting to Britain, and say the Luftwaffe won the battle of Britain and got air superiority over the UK and there was a German victory (all quite possible), followed shortly after by a German victory in Ireland - well the Germans would hardly stop at the border seeing as they invaded other neutral countries, do you think

(a) they would send Irish people off to to slave labour concentration camps and sometimes extermination camps (same as happened in the other countries Germany invaded)

or (b) we would get a 32 county Ireland and live happy ever after?

If (a), then looking the other way to spite Britain would have been a bit stupid and short sighted, don't you think?

Penny dropped yet?

And there are some who just want to troll no matter how simply the facts are explained to them. Ireland's neutrality in WW2 is a complex subject and de Valera and the government did the best that they could based on the information available to them at the time. The way that Francis McM talks about how "we" should have done this or that as if it was some kind of soccer match. That is quite offensive to the memories of those who lost their lives in WW2.

We all know the reasons for looking the other way. And ignoring the realities of what would have happened had there been a German victory.

We’d have had another invader to deal with and would have been at war.

Not hard to work it out.
We considered the chance of two nations invading us for their selfish reasons and decided on a course of action and stuck to it. It still rankles with the sycophants while even the belligerents and potential invaders have long forgotten it.

Most invaders behave the same way, as I said we would have expertise and experience.

We were faced with two potential invaders.

We decided rationally on a course of action and it was the right one for us. What others did was up to them.

The bitterness is writ large there.
Everyone including Britain made decisions that suited them.

We made one that suited us. We don’t and haven’t wanted a part in the wars the two main belligerents got involved in since either.

I said ‘everyone including Britain’

Don’t do a Francis and start inventing stuff

There were others, who the main ones were in the context of our deliberations is fairly obvious. If you want to argue otherwise work away.

I don’t think Japan was a big factor in our deliberations.

The two main belligerents I was referring to who went on to be involved in wars we didn’t get involved in was Britain and the uS BTW

Who the hell do you think was included in ‘everyone’?

Read posts properly.