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

We were basically the only English speaking nation in the world not to join the war. However hundreds if thousands of Irish people helped the British directly or indirectly. However what really disgusted the world I think was how after Hitlers extermination camps had been exposed to the world, two days after Hitler's suicide, de Valera and President Douglas Hyde visited the German Minister in Dublin, Eduard Hempel, to offer condolences. No other country in the world did that. Not our finest hour. No surprise we took in f… all Jewish refugees either.

All comments

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124567998#Comment_124567998

Rubbish. Churchill, like everyone else, knew Ireland ( or Eire or the free state as is was sometimes known) was not a Colony. British airmen who got lost or crashed here were interned in the first few years of the war. If Ireland was a colony, Churchill would not have said after the war “This was, indeed, a deadly moment in our life and had it not been for the loyalty and friendship of Northern Ireland, we should have been forced to come to close quarters with Mr. de Valera, or perish forever from the earth. However, with a restraint and poise to which I venture to say history will find few parallels, His Majesty’s government never laid a hand upon them, though at times it would have been quite easy and natural. We left the de Valera government to frolic with the Germans and later with the Japanese representatives to their hearts’ content.”

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124568732#Comment_124568732

Quote "And on 4 June, confirmation came from Belmullet when Ted Sweeney reported:
“Heavy rain and drizzle cleared, cloud at 900 feet and visibility on
land and sea very clear.”

Was there anyone else within hundreds of miles of Belmullet? What about the planes from Lough Erne area, only 75 or 80 miles away , were they off on their summer holiers do you think? Would they have known what visibility was like?

I'd say myself, if they could spot Bismarck, they could tell the weather too. And/ or report it back from ships in the area. And even hundreds of miles further away.

The Allies had lost contact with the Bismarck and believed it was heading for Germany. An Enigma decrypt of a message from a Luftwaffe general in Athens enquiring about his son who was on the Bismarck indicated that it was heading for Brest and gave an approximate location. The Allies knew the direction in which to search. Don't think that this information about Enigma and its role in the sinking of the Bismarck was included in the movie "Sink The Bismarck!".

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124568990#Comment_124568990

Don't feed the troll! Francis is full of **** and can't argue a point properly! Francis, report me to a Mod because you've already accused me of being a re-reg, editing Wikipedia and confusing me with another poster.!

casey jones

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124568824#Comment_124568824

Except it was a bit more complicated than looking out the window to see what the weather was like. You claimed to know more about barometric pressure readings than I'll ever know. The bbc story stated that Belmullet's report was confirmation that the sky was clear. It doesnt cover the hourly air pressure reporting.

Interesting to see that 10 Irish weather stations were giving hourly reports. Belmullet's was most significant due to its westerly geographic location. Why wait until weather systems had moved eastward when the go/no go decision had to be made asap. Unless you were desperate to involve Lough Erne somehow!

As for the planning detail for D Day nobody is claiming the allies set out to be dependant on the Belmullet weather readings. The weather was the one variable that could not be controlled and forecasting was unreliable at that time. Even with all the resources devoted to it Staggs team were completely divided on the forecast for the 5th and 6th June. Sometimes big decisions come down to a moment when clarity is required and this can sometimes come from an unexpected source.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124568990#Comment_124568990

Not the point. The Bismarck was spotted by a plane from Lough Erne, which eventually led to its sinking. The point was if planes from N. Ireland, 75 or 80 miles from Belmullet, could spot Bismarck, they could tell the weather over the Atlantic too. And/ or report it back from ships in the area. And even hundreds of miles further away. I'd even say they were quite expert at reporting what visibility and the cloud cover was like. And knowing if cloud was at 700 feet or 1000 feet. They had instrumentation.

But maybe as the 6000 full time staff of the UK met office at the time, along with thousands of met people from the other Allies etc, were all waiting for the phone call from the post office clerk / part time weather reporter from Belmullet, in order to postpone or risk the D-day invasion.

The phone call that said “Heavy rain and drizzle cleared, cloud at 900 feet and visibility on land and sea very clear.”

lol.

N.B in 1944, apart from aircraft, professional meteorologists sometimes measured cloud height accurately by using analog tools: a ceiling balloon (measuring ascent time), a ceiling projector (a searchlight used for optical triangulation at night), and pilot balloons tracked etc. Professional meteorologists could have gone to that trouble when an exceptionally important event like D-Day - with about 20,000 vessels / airplanes - depended on it. The civilian part time postal clerk / weather reporter in a neutral country like Ireland did not and was not expected to. And she could have been sick or replaced by someone else on the day in question. humans are human.

On the other hand, some of the 6,000 UK met office staff were working on ships in the Atlantic and it is not unreasonable to expect, considering how thorough the planning for D day was, some of their best brains were on the job, with naval discipline and precision. They even had 3 different teams analysing at the results.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124568990#Comment_124568990

When the Birmarck was spotted by aircraft, it was spotted by a RAF Catalina flying boat in the North Atlantic, approximately 700 miles (1,126 km) west of Brest, France. The plane had taken off from Lough Erne and had to travel out west to beyond Belmullet before travelling all the way down the west coast of Ireland, before heading for west of France. Imagine how much handier and more effective it would have been for the Allies if they could have had a sea plane base at the Treaty port of Cobh, same as during WW1.

(During WWI, the U.S. Navy established a major seaplane base near Cobh, known as U.S. Naval Air Station (NAS) Queenstown, it operated Curtiss H-16 flying boats to hunt German U-boats and protect Allied convoys.)

AI slop and copy pasta does not cover up that yet another claim by Francis McM was debunked. The reports from Belmullet were crucial for the timing of D-Day and it was one report that was confirmed by a phone call from, apparently, the UK that was used as part of the decision to set the date for D-Day as June 6th. Despite the obvious attempts by Francis McM to belittle Maureey Flavin Sweeney's reporting and the award from the US Congress, history has recorded her contribution to D-Day. The waffle from Francis McM about weather measurements and aircraft demonstrates a complete lack of knowledge of how data on weather is gathered.

The lack of knowledge of the role that Enigma played in allowing the Allies to reacquire the Bismarck having previously lost contact with it suggests that Francis McM's knowledge of major events of WW2 is derived from reading comics and watching movies. The main Enigma decrypt provided an approximate location for Bismarck and information that it was making for Brest rather than Germany. There was also more confirmation of the change when Bismarck's communications traffic shifted from Germany to France. Francis McM was obviously unaware of all this and did not know why aircraft were searching in that part of the Atlantic.

The pattern has been well established in this thread. Francis McM makes a claim. The claim gets debunked. AI slop and copy pasta are dumped into the thread. Then there is the diversion to some new claim. The importance of the Irish weather reports in the decision to launch D-Day on the sixth of June is the latest example of historical facts debunking yet another Francis McM claim.

The U571 movie seemed to be a failed attempt at a diversion. It did not work. Now, there is waffle about aircraft operating from Lough Erne again.

Irish neutrality is a historical fact. There were Irish contributions to the Allied war effort and the contrbution of Maureen Flavin Sweeney was noted by an award from the US Congress. This did not stop Francis McM from trying to belittle her and her weather report contributions. Weather data had to be collected. It does not matter how many employees the UK Met had if they were not in the correct location to collect the necessary data that supported Stagg's hypothesis. That data was used to make the decision to launch D-Day on June 6th.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124570206#Comment_124570206

lol. I am not going to stoop to your level of insulting, it says more about you than about me.

Some of the 6,000 professional staff in the UK met office were indeed in the Atlantic in 1944, that was their full time job, unlike the person in Belmullet. Planes did indeed fly from Lough Erne during the war, and they could in fact detect cloud cover and give reports on visibility as well.

There were 400 to 600 ships in the Atlantic as well and they took hourly barometer readings.

Actually 320 brave men lost their lives while flying missions from the RAF base at Lough Erne, and your attitude shows a great lack of respect to them.

The Allies had lost sight of the Bismarck for 31 hours, after a very well executed evasive manoeuvre. Even just the cruising speed of Bismarck , not its max. speed, would take it 1090 km in 31 hours. There are some good books on the Bismarck, you should read one. It was indeed a RAF Catalina flying boat from Lough Erne that found the Bismarck,, approximately 700 miles (1,126 km) west of Brest, France.

As I told you before, the plane had taken off from Lough Erne and had to travel out west to north of Erris Head in n.west Mayo, and beyond it, before travelling all the way down the west coast of Ireland, before heading for west of France. Imagine how much handier and more effective it would have been for the Allies if they could have had a sea plane base at the Treaty port of Cobh, same as during WW1.

Not happy that Irish neutrality is a historical fact, Francis McM wanders off into the realm of "what if" to avoid having to deal with the historical fact that the weather reports from Belmullet played a major part in the timing of D-Day. Copy pasta and conjecture about flights from Irish Treaty Ports don't change the historical fact that an Enigma decrypt was crucial in knowing where to seach for the Bismarck and the Allies reacquiring and sinking the Bismarck. Historical facts continue to debunk Francis McM's claims.History deals with what happened rather than "what if".

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124570600#Comment_124570600

Pretty sure their next link is going to be The Man in the High Castle!

rock22

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124570206#Comment_124570206

They may not even have had to wait for an Enigma decrypt. By radio triangulation they were able to determine the position of Bismark later on 25th. From that position it was clear that the Bismark was heading to France and not back to Norway. While a Catalina from Lough Erne was the first aircraft to confirm her position two other aircraft from the Ark Royal also found her about 20 minutes later. The point is , the Royal navy already knew her position and course before sending the aircraft to confirm. They lost sight of her on a few more occasions subsequently and aircraft had to be redirected onto her by the cruiser Sheffield who was shadowing her. Losing site of an enemy ship was not at all unusual. Capital ships would often engage at huge distances often in poor viability.

But the sinking of the Bismark has nothing to do with Irish neutrality. As I posted very early in this thread, Churchill's objection to Irish neutrality was not just the policy itself but the idea that Ireland should be allowed take an independent position. He even asked UK legal officers, i presume the attorney general, the check if Ireland could legally act independently. They told him that we could do so due to the statute of Westminster, an act that Churchill was very supportive of.

It took Churchill at leas t a decade to really accept Irish independence, but accept it he did. Even suggesting that he would welcome a united Ireland. (in public, Churchill in 1948 paid tribute to Ireland’s “orderly Christian society with a grace and culture of its own, and a flash of sport thrown in, built up in Southern Ireland in spite of many gloomy predictions.” He added: “I shall always hope that some day there will be a united Ireland.”: https://winstonchurchill.hillsdale.edu/great-contemporary-devalera/

)

Off topic a a bit , but:-

According the David McCullagh, in his book "From Crown to Harp", it seems that is was during the discussions with the British around ending neutrality in exchange for unity, that DeValera came to the conclusion that any unity would mean a dilution of independence resulting in a closer link to the Commonwealth , something he did not want. it was probably why he was content to remain half in and out of the Commonwealth and pursue a wait and see policy.. I think , in that view, that his position is more and more shared by people now, i.e. that unity would be fine if NI were to join us but we will not want to make any constitutional changes affecting out independence in order to bring unity about.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124570634#Comment_124570634

It was mentioned here before about Dev not being opposed to being a member of the commonwealth as both a trade benefit and as a means to a UI.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124570600#Comment_124570600

lol. What rubbish. I never said or implied Irish neutrality was not a historical fact. It is also a fact 6000 professional full time people worked for the UK met office in 1944, some of whom worked in the Atlantic. Also a fact that planes from Lough Erne took weather reports from the Atlantic, and there were hundreds of ships there taking hourly barometer readings. But if you want to believe the fate of D-day depended on weather report from a part time civilian weather reporter from a neutral country, go right ahead. Sure, it was taken on board, but rest assured there were other weather reports from not too far away.

Also it is a historical fact that the Bismarck was lost for 31 hours until a Catalina flying boat from Lough Erne found it. It had to travel out west to north of Erris Head in n.west Mayo, and beyond it, before travelling all the way down the west coast of Ireland, before heading for west of France / bay of Biscay. This thread is to do with Irish neutrality in WW2 - imagine how much handier and more effective it would have been for the Allies if they still had use of the treaty ports like up until 1938. Do not forget there was a large sea plane base at Cobh during WW1, from which planes patrolled the Atlantic against the U boat threat.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124570634#Comment_124570634

The RF traffic analysis on Bismarck's communications showed that it had switched to communicating with Paris from Wilhelmshaven. This was interpreted as a confirmation that it was sailing for Brest rather than Germany. The Enigma decrypt apparently included a location. The Lough Erne thing and the Irish Treaty Ports seem to be another obsession of Francis McM. It msy have been a loss of visual and radar contact. At that time, marine radar equipment had quite limited range and the range of airborne radar was also limited. Knowing the general direction in which to search was important. Once that had been established, it was only a matter of time before an aircraft found Bismarck.

It seemed that Churchill, at the time, considered Ireland still to be a British colony or dominion and the neutrality issue also caused problems in the North. There was no conscription there because of the political problems it would have caused. Even the Unionists did not want it.

De Valera was a very shrewd political operator and was playing the long game on Irish Unity.. He had also to consider that Ireland and the UK had a common currency and this economic tie to the UK's economy would have been a major concern. The half in/half out situation makes sense in this context.

With Churchill and his comments about Ireland, he was free to say more favourable things about Ireland when he was out of government but he was also putting his own spin on the history of relations between Ireland and the UK. I think that he once commented that "history will be kind to me for I shall write it".

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124570816#Comment_124570816

You seem to be obsessed about Churchill, maybe because he led Britain and its Empire, which were basically the only countries to stand up to the Axis countries for a year in WW2, from the fall of France in June 1940 to the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. But for that, all of Europe would probably have fallen to the Nazis. Some naive people here would have welcomed a German victory, thinking it would have brought a U.I., but do not realise the Germans would have sent Irish people to slave labour Nazi concentration camps, like they did with captured Irish seamen.

For your information, Churchill did not still regard Ireland as a British colony, or the Allies would have used our Treaty ports, which Britain had the use of up until 1938 anyway.

As pointed out to you before, if Ireland was a colony, Churchill would not have said after the war “This was, indeed, a deadly moment in our life and had it not been for the loyalty and friendship of Northern Ireland, we should have been forced to come to close quarters with Mr. de Valera, or perish forever from the earth. However, with a restraint and poise to which I venture to say history will find few parallels, His Majesty’s government never laid a hand upon them, though at times it would have been quite easy and natural. We left the de Valera government to frolic with the Germans and later with the Japanese representatives to their hearts’ content.”

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124570995#Comment_124570995

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbgPpG8pO8U&t=3s

…….

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124571027#Comment_124571027

Sev say " the reply that springs to the lips of every man of Irish blood, no matter where in the world…"

lol.

In the book on the war "All Hell Let Loose", Max Hastings wrote

"the crew of every merchant and other allied ship that sailed past the coast of Ireland during the war years felt a surge of bitterness towards the country that relied on Britain for most of its vital commodoties, and all of its fuel, but would not lift a finger to help it in its hour of need."

Maybe Dev thought none of those sailors had Irish blood?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124571027#Comment_124571027

That is one amazing speech. Ireland was lucky to have de Valera leading during the war instead of the current political mediocrity.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124571074#Comment_124571074

Max Hastings is using Nicholas Montserrats novel as reffreference!

Dev choose his words carelessly.

"..the reply that springs to the lips of every man of Irish blood, no matter where in the world…"

By implication, he considers those who left Ireland to fight Nazism, or those who were in the battle of the Atlantic and cursed Irish Neutrality as they had to sail past the Irish coast which had no treaty Ports, and not being of Irish blood.

Writing on the wall for some Irish people who fought in the war : no surprise a lot of them faced discrimination when they returned home to Ireland.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124571350#Comment_124571350

The quote is in the comprehensive World War II history book titled All Hell Let Loose: The World at War 1939–1945.

Monsarrat (not Montserrat) was commander of a British frigate during the war so knew a bit of what he was talking about.

rock22

We were very lucky to have a politician of De Valera capabilities during the emergency. Something that i think is recognised by all Irish people today.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124571608#Comment_124571608

That is what is taught in schools but not everyone would agree with you.

Dev was osctacised by even Irish America, who were the closest foreign friends Dev had in the world apart from Hempel and the Germans. Dev was the only Prime Minister in the world to commiserate on the suicide of Hitler. Dev did not go to the U.S. ambassador / Minister to commiserate on the death of U.S. President Roosevelt a short while previously.

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2024/12/28/irish-america-appalled-by-de-valeras-visit-to-german-minister-after-hitlers-death/

Dev's track record on letting in refugees (virtually none), discrimination (some), censorship (among the most severe in the world) etc leaves a lot to be desired.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124571350#Comment_124571350

Francis McM probably hasn't read either book but keeps recycling the quote because it is critical of Irish neutrality.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124571491#Comment_124571491

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 its fuel, but would not lift a finger to help in its hour of need. ‘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.’ Yet because of Ireland’s divided sovereignty and loyalties, even Northern Ireland, still a part of the United Kingdom, never dared to introduce conscription

An actual quote from The Cruel Sea by Nicholas Monsarrat (forgive my autocorrect)

You used Max Hastings book as a reference earlier, do you agree with his interview with Monsarrat?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124571658#Comment_124571658

Probably only read the review of the movie!

Cyclingtourist

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124571350#Comment_124571350

Nicholas Monsarrat never served in the merchant navy, he entered the Royal Navy on the basis of his sailing experience which would have involved knowledge of tides and maritime terms. The fact he’d been to Cambridge and before that Winchester would also have endeared him to the Admiralty.

He was already a writer when WW2 broke out and was commissioned in 1940.

No doubt some merchant sailors did harbour resentment against Irish neutrality but Monsarrat was in no position to speak on behalf of the entire service.

He was exercising ‘literary licence’, understandable but not to be taken as evidence.