Tell me about Irish Neutrality and Ireland in WW2, Veeky Forums

ive better things to do than elaborate with a slimy piece of trash like yourself... /please leave
You are a plague .

Are you okay user? I am OP. I have done nothing but ask historic questions. You seem triggered. Have a glass of milk or something, bud.

Intredasting. I guess that's true, although didn't Ireland have some sort of previous relations from Germany based on what went down between them leading up to the rising?

I remember reading that regardless of neutrality, Ireland got bombed to shit too.

>but I'm curious about how bigger players saw Ireland and Éamon de Valera during the war.
Precisely as Ireland deserved to be seen. As utterly irrelevant except as a potential staging ground.

Oh, really? I guess it doesn't make sense to have much of an opinion on a neutral state in a war. I suppose I was hoping somebody saw them as moral or that one of the bigger countries had a generally positive outlook on them, but in reality I guess it's fair for the big players to just say "literally WHO are pussies?"

As an Irishman, I personally love De Valera. I see him as one of the greatest Irish politicians to ever live.
He dismantled the Anglo-Irish Treaty piece by piece until we could form a Republic; he kept Conservative values alive and well in Ireland, and he was responsible for keeping us out of the Second World War.

Though, I do have my critiques of the man. His decisions to keep contraceptives banned and allowing women to be thrown into the Magdalene Laundries was inhuman.

We stayed out of the Second World War for two reasons.
1. We could be seen as truly independent of Britain.
2. No more Irish lives would be squandered on the battlefield.

>No more Irish lives would be squandered on the battlefield.
Except for all the Irish who left to fight for the UK that you're all still determined to pretend don't exist.

>left
Deserted. You mean deserted. They committed treason and were lucky they weren't executed.

That was their personal decisions. But the state wasn't *obligated* to fight.

People voluntarily leaving to fight for a foreign country are not pushed in that direction by their nation-hence voluntarily.
They didn't have to go, they weren't encouraged to, and they weren't held back from doing so.

Tell me more about him, my guy. I read from some places that during the rising he was a bit of a shitter, but in power he did some great stuff.

Wasn't it just the north that got bombed? Belfast mostly iirc

Belfast got absolutely fucked, but there were several bombings of the republic, oddly enough.

damn, 28 died in one air raid on Dublin. Apparently a mistake

i find this particularily disgusting

the irish that chose to join the fight against fascism in ww2 were condemed to a life of poverty when they got home

they where blacklisted from working, these heros were treated like traitors

>It was referred to in the Irish parliament - the Dail - at the time as a "starvation order"

>"They didn't understand why we did what we did. A lot of Irish people wanted Germany to win the war - they were dead up against the British."

>One of them, 92-year-old Phil Farrington, took part in the D-Day landings and helped liberate the German death camp at Bergen-Belsen - but he wears his medals in secret.

>Even to this day, he has nightmares that he will be arrested by the authorities and imprisoned for his wartime service.

>"They would come and get me, yes they would," And his 25-year-old grandson, Patrick, confirmed: "I see the fear in him even today, even after 65 years."

>Maybe one slice of bread a day and that would be it - no proper clothing, no proper heating. "moving from one slum to another"

>normal punishment for deserting your nation's armed forces and joining another's is death
>especially when you consider Britain damaged Ireland in ways the Germans could never have dreamed of doing
>in recognition of the dangers that fascism posed (even though most of them were just poor and wanted the extra money the British army would give them) these guys just get blacklisted from working instead of being lined up against a wall and shot, as they should have been
>"omg Ireland yuo are nadsi >:("

"It contains the names of men who were to be punished but who'd already been killed in action, but not the names of men who deserted the Irish army to spend their war years as
burglars or thieves,"

shud ub fagit

>didn't Ireland have some sort of previous relations from Germany
the relationship wasn't any deeper than Germany trying to take advantage of Irish discontent to destabilise the UK

>Ireland got bombed to shit too
It was intermittent and there were very few casualties compared to a serious bombing campaign. Germany's line was that neutral Irish cities and towns were mistaken for Belfast, although there's some dispute over whether some of the Dublin bombings were accidents

>Be Irish kid in 1916
>Watch as your people are split between those who want a long and fruitful relationship with the british for the betterment of Ireland and those who want to snatch independence from the oppressive british hands
>Watch the rising unfold and fail, only for there to be a surge in support for freedom
>Watch as ROI is formed and ireland becomes independent
>Ruh-roh, those dudes who sent us guns are getting a bit frisky over in relevant-land
>Suddenly british are in an all out war against them
>Our ocuntry is staying the fuck away from all that noise
>One friend goes to fight for the british, to stop the evil nazis
>One friend stays in Ireland, refusing to fight for the british
>Britfriend returns to be looked down upon and treated as a traitor
>Éirefriend is looked down upon worldwide as a pussyfoot nazi-loving faggot
>Go up to the savage lands in Northern Ireland to escape this fuckery
>Killed by UVF in old age

What a batshit fucking country.

we've had a difficult time of it

>Live in Belfast
>At a protestant friends house for some dinner
>He brings out a cheese board
>"Do you like cheese, user?"
>"Yes mate, I'm a sucker for anything dairy."
>Several masked men pour out of every doorway, cupboard and from underneath or behind furniture
>Union Flags roll down along the walls, covering the wallpaper
>God Save the Queen starts playing from every audio source while the television turns on and starts showing Monty Python reruns
>Friend shoves a gun in my face
>"I think you mean London-Dairy, mate."

Everyone was 'lol, who cares' except for Churchill, who had to be talked out of declaring war on Ireland for no raisin.

Fucking Churchill, mang. Ballsy old bastard.

>London-Dairy

Thank you for injecting some wholesome laffs into this thread. Ireland threads never last.

is this OC?

...

Im sure Phil and his buddies fought with Brits because they were so sincerely morally outraged about the nazi's, and not because it paid well.

Back in those days it wasnt even known how evil the nazi's were. Phil got what he deserved for helping the fucking Brits.

...

I fucking hate the idea of "irish soldiers who didn't fight in WW2 helped the nazis!!!!"

The "moral" issues that came with helping or not fighting Germany were largely unknown for a long time, and to many people it was just another political land-grabbing clusterfuck.

>tfw went to school with people who say the people in the Easter Rising collaborated with nazis

>unknown for a long time
pretty sure concentration camps were known as a thing by 1944-45
half a decade isn't a "long time".

I don't get it.

Dairy = Derry
big unionists say Londonderry

>generally came to be common knowledge at around 1945
>half a decade of having decided to have nothing to do with the war
>Axis already essentially had their shit pushed in somewhat severely
>People are supposed to be held accountable for failing to stop something they only became aware of a couple of years before it stopped outright
>If they had entered the conflict regardless, they would have returned home to horrible conditions anyway

Irish Neutrality was the right thing to do.

City called Londonderry in Northern Ireland is often called 'Derry for convenience, tradition or to trigger Unionists.
Dairy sounds like derry.

Going down that road you could always mention the brits that went to fight for Germany in the Waffen SS that you're all still determined to pretend don't exist.

At least the Irish volunteers didn't get hanged for treason after the war.

Would Hitler have won if he had the Irish on his side?

I can't see having the Irish on his side having much of an impact. Brits would have brought us to heel very quickly.

...

>City called Londonderry in Northern Ireland is often called 'Derry for convenience, tradition or to trigger Unionists.
It's called Derry because it's name is Derry. The English showed up and stuck the nonsensical London in front of it to make it sound more English.

Only the shitheads who deserted their duty in the Irish military to get better pay in Britain. They knew what they were doing. Ordinary Irish volunteers in the Biritish army never had any problem when they returned

>live in a republic
>get punished for fighting for Republicanism

Traitorous butthurt scum

Eternal shame upon them for not getting involved in WW2

>Fighting for a Monarchy against a republic
>fighting for Republicanism.

Irishman here, consider WW1.

Many people retroactively apply a WW2 lens to this conflict, putting Germany in the mold of the evil empire that the world must band together to stop.

This was far from the case. WW1, at least from our perspective, was a fight for global dominance among several giant colonial empires, each morally indistinguishable from the other.

We saw WW2 as essentially a continuation of that, Britain trying to expand its empire in competition with its rivals. The horrors Germany committed were largely dismissed as war propaganda when we heard of them at all.

In light of this, ask yourself why a small, newly freed republic; in charge of its own affairs for the first time in a thousand years, would jump into any side of this conflict; particularly the side of the empire that had ruled it with a merciless iron fist up until 20 years earlier

why do people hate the Irish so much?

Because they deserve it.

Officially, it's name is Londonderry. That's the way it is, user. I just call it Derry because it's shorter.

>implying
Only English people and assblasted unionist apes commonly hate irish. The general (and appropriate) attitude is "literally who with alright bants"

Because they're a bunch of shiftless drunkard wifebeaters and probably catholic as well.

Either English, NI Unionist or a tiny minority opinion.

There is really very little reason to ever be mad at irish people or ireland as a nation, lads. Why so triggered?

I'm just bantering desu

>defending irish as just some irrelevant people who are good at bants
>your bants go straight over my head

I am ashamed

Why did Sweden benefit much more from being neutral than Ireland?

Why are people acting as if nazi Germany was out of the ordinary, or even some supernatural evil force? Are you taking war propaganda seriously 70 years after the war is over? Ireland had literally no reason to hate Germany more than England.

More relevant.

Iron Exports.

The Irish were the ones first triggered. They couldn't handle the banter.

They were just hungry as fuck, lad.

When they learned that a tiny island like them can't win through might nor relevance, that's when they instead turned to utter craic.

Crack is taking from the midlands of ENGLAND. They're so fucking sad and culturally irrelevant their "unique characteristic" is English.

I don't even know if you're being serious anymore.

Cultures of the modern world are all so blended into one that American, English, Irish, Italian, whatever are all very, very similar.

I don't agree.

How? Aside from language and some products you can only get in some countries, it's the same shit.

All of the first world that isn't in the US is basically America-Lite

Well I'm sorry you feel that way. I don't feel we'll ever agree on this matter.

Where are you from?

UK

Not who you're talking to, but with De Valera you have to take the good with the bad.

Firstly, Irelands independence may never have gone as well as it did were it not for him, that's a long and complex political tale, and one where De Valera really shines.

Where he does not shine however is domestically for a few reasons. De Valera more or less handed this country to the catholic church, and the ramifications of that decision are still being felt today. The man was militant about keeping the references to Ireland being a catholic country in the constitution, he refused to adopt contraceptives, there was the whole magdalene laundry business as the previous poster stated. De Valera was even extremely hesitant about allowing television into Ireland, We only got television in 1960.

All in all, I would regard De Valera as a great leader were it not for his relationship with the catholic church, which has had ramifications for this country that are still being felt today in our governments unwillingness to even touch the abortion issue with a ten foot pole.

Also, some consider him a traitor for some things he did in the early stages of the independence movement, however I don't know enough about that to comment on it.

Why the fuck would the Irish get involved in World War 2? They weren't an ally of anybody who was attacked by the Axis powers, and they were never attacked either.