Irish neutrality during World War II

It was maintained throughout the conflict, in spite of several German air raids by aircraft that missed their intended British targets, and attacks on Ireland's shipping fleet by Allies and Axis alike.

Pursuing a policy of neutrality required maintaining a balance between the strict observance of non-alignment and the taking of practical steps to repel or discourage an invasion from either of the two warring parties.

Alongside George VI's few remaining powers, the 1937 Constitution had provided that the holder of the new office of President of Ireland was in "Supreme Command" of the Defence Forces.

Others served in the Merchant Navy and Royal Air Force, some rising up the ranks rapidly, such as the youngest wing commander fighter ace in the RAF's history, Brendan Finucane.

[citation needed] In response to accusations that the state had failed to take up the moral fight against Nazism, the Secretary of the Department of External Affairs, Joe Walshe, said in 1941 that:[8] … small nations like Ireland do not and cannot assume a role as defenders of just causes except [their] own.

Censorship of radio newscasts meant newsreaders were confined to reading, without comment, the dispatches of each side, while weather forecasts were halted to preclude the inadvertent assistance of planes or ships involved in the war.

However, on the British declaration of war, the teenaged George Cole watched as an effigy of Neville Chamberlain was publicly burnt in Dublin without any interference by the police.

When he was invited to a 1943 wedding to be attended by many of the former Protestant Ascendancy, his secretary received assurances from the bride that there would be no "pro-belligerent demonstration either by toasting the King of England and/or the singing of the British National Anthem".

Former Old IRA commander and founder of the Fine Gael Party General Eoin O'Duffy became a leader of the paramilitary Army Comrades Association organisation in 1932–1933.

In the six months prior to the onset of war, there had been an escalation of Irish Republican Army violence and a bombing campaign in Britain under the new leadership of Seán Russell.

There were fears that the United Kingdom, eager to secure Irish ports for their air and naval forces, might use the attacks as a pretext for an invasion of Ireland and a forcible seizure of the assets in question.

Active republicans were interned at the Curragh or given prison sentences: six men were hanged under newly legislated acts of treason and three more died on hunger strike.

In his Saint Patrick's Day address in 1940, Taoiseach Éamon de Valera, lamented: "No country had ever been more effectively blockaded because of the activities of belligerents and our lack of ships, most of which had been sunk, which virtually cut all links with our normal sources of supply.

They identified themselves as neutrals with bright lights and by painting the tricolour and EIRE in large letters on their sides and decks,[26] despite this, twenty percent of seamen were killed in the war.

As in the days preceding, news of the dumping was widely published, the magazine and the locals who spotted the unloading of the captured Greeks noted that the U-boat had conducted the action and re-submerged before coastal defence aircraft could be directed onto the trespassing vessel.

We know, of course, that should attack come from a power other than Great Britain, Great Britain in her own interest must help us to repel it.At a series of meetings in 17–26 June 1940, during and after the Battle of France, British envoy Malcolm MacDonald brought a proposal to end the partition of Ireland and offered a solemn undertaking to accept "the principle of a United Ireland" if the independent Irish state would abandon its neutrality and immediately join the war against Germany and Italy.

De Valera therefore rejected the amended proposals on 4 July, worried that there was "no guarantee that in the end we would have a united Ireland" and that it "would commit us definitely to an immediate abandonment of our neutrality".

Subsequently, Menzies reported to Churchill that the complexity of the questions of Irish unity and sovereignty meant that there was little possibility of Ireland's abandoning its policy of neutrality.

Nevertheless, Churchill directed Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery to prepare plans to seize Cork and Queenstown (Cobh) so their harbours could be used as naval bases.

"[45] The co-operation that emerged allowed for meetings to take place to consider events after German troops had overrun neutral Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium.

He, in turn, communicated to Berlin that such was the case that it "rendered it inevitable for the Irish government to show a certain consideration for Britain" and urged war officials to avoid any action that would legitimise a British invasion of Ireland.

Hempel, for his part, wrote to Germany of "the great and decisive importance, even to Ireland, of the changed situation in world affairs and of the obvious weakness of the democracies."

"[45] Other examples of Irish attitudes towards Nazi Germany found expression in mid-1940 in de Valera's Chargé d'Affaires in Berlin, William Warnock, 'whose "unquestionable" hostility to Britain could easily be interpreted as sympathetic for National Socialism.

'[46] Academic J.J. Lee questioned just how much of Warnock's zeal towards Hitler's Reichstag speech on 19 July was genuine enthusiasm for the 'international justice' that could be expected after Germany's victory, as opposed to an adherence to the instructions of Dublin to please oneself to the potential victors.

[53] There was some domestic anti-Jewish sentiment during World War II, most notably expressed in a notorious speech to the Dáil in 1943, when newly elected independent TD Oliver J. Flanagan advocated "routing the Jews out of the country".

… A successful applicant in 1938 was typically wealthy, middle-aged or elderly, single from Austria, Roman Catholic and desiring to retire in peace to Ireland and not engage in employment.

Only a few Viennese bankers and industrialists met the strict criterion of being Catholic, although possibly of Jewish descent, capable of supporting themselves comfortably without involvement in the economic life of the country.

[58] In his speech celebrating the Allied victory in Europe (13 May 1945) Winston Churchill remarked that he had demonstrated restraint towards Ireland because "we never laid a violent hand upon them, which at times would have been quite easy and quite natural.

These six southern counties, those, let us suppose, commanding the entrance to the narrow seas, Germany had singled out and insisted on holding herself with a view to weakening England as a whole, and maintaining the securing of her own communications through the Straits of Dover.

It was as if an entire people had been condemned to live in Plato's cave, with their backs to the fire of life and deriving their only knowledge of what went on outside from the flickering shadows thrown on the wall before their eyes by the men and women who passed to and fro behind them.