Fascist Eire (in Franco's way).
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It could become a problem for the UK. You might see a preemptive invasion to to ensure the Nazi's don't get an ally/foothold in Ireland.
Portugal and Spain were lucky because they were far enough away that remaining neutral was a viable option. I'm not sure if the UK would tolerate a fascist power so close to home. Plus you know the Nazi's would be all over Ireland begging them for airbases.
They'd need to give CONSIDERABLE reassurances they won't interfere, which could be difficult as a Fascist Eire may try and seize Northern Ireland from the UK. Aggression there would see an Axis flip and disaster for the allies.
The question is, could a Fascist Ireland have enough reassurances and motivation to remain neutral?
Portugal and Spain were lucky because they were far enough away that remaining neutral was a viable option. I'm not sure if the UK would tolerate a fascist power so close to home. Plus you know the Nazi's would be all over Ireland begging them for airbases.
They'd need to give CONSIDERABLE reassurances they won't interfere, which could be difficult as a Fascist Eire may try and seize Northern Ireland from the UK. Aggression there would see an Axis flip and disaster for the allies.
The question is, could a Fascist Ireland have enough reassurances and motivation to remain neutral?
I think the UK would make it very clear that they won't accept any German troops moving into Ireland, and will use the power of the Royal Navy to stop them from doing so. Assuming whoever's running Ireland isn't totally nuts they'll see that neutrality is the smart option and go along. After the war I'd guess they basically go the same route is Spain and Portugal: spend a few decades as an unpleasant but not particularly awful authoritarian state, and then democratize in the 1960's or 70's after the generation that took power in the 1930's dies off.
No.
Irritating as it might be to Anglophiles and modern-day social liberals, De Valera in the 1930s was the democratic good guy in contrast to the infant Fine Gael's fascination with one-party states. Import substitution and social conservatism are not even close to being the same thing as fascism.
Had O'Duffy and the Blueshirts managed somehow to seize power in 1934, we would probably have creaked along as a tinpot authoritarian cattle and workforce exporter well into the 60s or 70s. With luck, Garret FitzGerald or Declan Costello (both of whose fathers had been enthusiastic shirt-wearers in the 1930s) might have played an Adolfo Suarez role by then, but there's no guarantee of it.
DeValera the democratic good guy? The Dev who used his thugs from the IRA days to batter the shite out of Cumann na Gaedheal meetings, necessitating the foundation of the blueshirts to protect their meetings? Dev who wrote a constitution with the upper house inspired by Mussolini's corporatist ideals, only rendered toothless when it had the gall to oppose him?
The idea that O'Duffy and the blueshirts were especially antidemocratic is Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil propaganda designed to obscure their own anti democratic skeletons in the closet.
In comparison to a main opposition party that wanted to replace democracy with a one-party corporatist state, yes.
John A. Costello, future Fine Gael Taoiseach (1948-51), happily drawing analogies in 1934 between his party and certain parties on the continent.
Fine Gael in the 1930s were quite clear about the intention to replace democracy with a one-party corporate state, once it became clear to them after the 1933 election that they weren't going to easily return to office through normal means. The old Cumann na nGaedheal leadership eventually wised up and reasserted control after their failure in the 1934 local elections, the failure of O'Duffy's proposed March on Dublin and the increasing embarrassment of O'Duffy's drunkenness and volatility.
The toothlessness had come earlier with the abolition of the Senate under the Free State constitution. The vocationalism was lip service to Quadragesimo Anno rather than Mussolini and always nominal.
My idea is a sort of clerical- fascist- corporativist regime.
Obviously only a completely insane government can think to be on axis side in WW-II.
And the only sane choice is neutrality.
After 1945,anticommunism and cold war can can make up the stocks of Dublin
Actually to be fair to De Valera he could have become a dicator and did not.
He called elections according to law and in 1948 left office when he lost
He called elections according to law and in 1948 left office when he lost
Pangur
Donor
Would that be the same O'Duffy who organised an Irish Brigade to fight for Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War?
And CnaG gave up power in 32 when FF thought they might launch a coup, I really don't see either side of OTL descending into Facism, and if it had I could see the UK "dealing" with Ireland shortly after the outbreak of WW2
700 is rather short of a Brigade though and they only stayed 6 months before leaving, kind of shows that they were never a force like mainland fascist organisations.
Pangur
Donor
Oh for sure. they were basically a joke. However if you go back to the OP O` Duffy is your only option, dead poor weak as anything option but never the less the only one
This comes back to the point about nations having no permanent friends, only permanent interests. The Republic of Ireland is far, far more vulnerable to British power than to German power and there is no realistic possibility of Germany being able to offer it any help whatsoever in the event of a British invasion.
Given those facts, even a Republic of Ireland that worshipped every word of Nazi dogma like the Bible would still refuse to ally with the Nazis, simply out of self-interest; to ally with Britain's enemies is to guarantee a British invasion that will destroy the Republic. The only effect of this on the Second World War would be that considerably more British troops would be stationed in Northern Ireland (to deter any adventures), which might have knock-on effects on the process of the war.
Given those facts, even a Republic of Ireland that worshipped every word of Nazi dogma like the Bible would still refuse to ally with the Nazis, simply out of self-interest; to ally with Britain's enemies is to guarantee a British invasion that will destroy the Republic. The only effect of this on the Second World War would be that considerably more British troops would be stationed in Northern Ireland (to deter any adventures), which might have knock-on effects on the process of the war.
The major stumbling block for the Republic if it went Fascist would have been the buy British policy at the time, sure there was enough rifles for about 2 divisions, beyond that Ireland wouldn't have much of anything. Even if from the mid 30's on Germany started giving Ireland anything they asked for they would still have little to no heavy weapons, air defence, air force or Navy.
Perhaps other fall outs would be none of the "allowances" that the Free State gave to the Allies during the war.
I misspoke, then, yes, of course you're right. But those did not have an enormous impact on the war effort, however noble they were.
While not enormous, what impact could Ireland have if it was sending shipping information to Germany during the battle of the Atlantic or allowing the Axis embassies to operate without restriction? Or if U boats were actually allowed to refuel (or that Ireland didn't notify the UK of sightings?). Or the weather reports for D Day that came from Ireland.
I read somewhere that the UK did a study that suggested that if Ireland had been Allied then shipping loses would have been reduced by 10% during the Battle of the Atlantic, I wonder if it was hostile would it be increased?
Pangur
Donor
If Ireland did that they would jumped on. Refueling u-boats would impossible to keep hidden. As for sightings strictly speaking they should not have been passed on but then again seeing as the very same u-boats were sinking ships bringing much needed supplies to Ireland not to do so would be frankly crackers.
Potentially interesting, but not going to shift the tide of war from inevitable German defeat in pretty much the same way as happened IOTL (Soviet advances in the east, later joined by Anglo-American invasion from the west).
Unless Ireland is magically turned into a population full of perfect obedient fascist stooges, there will be at least some Irish people who dislike fascism (note the number of Irishmen who, to their credit, joined the British Army in the Second World War in order to fight fascism) and the United Kingdom is likely to learn of this. If Ireland actually refuels Kriegsmarine U-boats, it'll be invaded by the UK from Northern Ireland and some suitable anti-fascist candidate will be put in power. With the Irish people divided between those who oppose fascism and those who believe that the anti-fascist leader is a British puppet, this would get very ugly very quickly.
Of course, that speculation is academic, because Ireland will never be so bold when it would so obviously cause disaster.
These are very plausible. But even if Operation Overlord is made more difficult and results in significantly more Allied losses, it will not be prevented entirely, and it is difficult to imagine it as a German success, given how well-prepared it was and given that the Germans were convinced that the invasion of Normandy was a bluff until it was too late for them to defeat it. Unless Ireland had high-up infiltrators in the British government who could tell the Germans such well-protected secrets as Bletchley Park and Operation Overlord, that's not going to change.
That's very interesting. Probably so.