Ireland joins WW2 and reunifies

Going for understatement are we?
Plus even if Dillon had been Taoiseach he'd never have managed to get a Dáil majority to support intervention. He was (literally) the only TD to speak out in the chamber in favour of joining the Allies, and that was after US entry.

To get Ireland into WW2 you'd need a PoD decades earlier, perhaps without a significant War of Independence.
 
Yeah, you'd basically need to change the entire post 1922 evolution of the state imo to end up with major changes, by the time Dev and FF are elected to office is too late to change anything, it's either that or you have to break out the crazy theories like Sealion or Green to make a change.
Yeah a failed German invasion is about the only plausible PoD. And that's stretching "plausible" almost to breaking point.
 
Plus even if Dillon had been Taoiseach he'd never have managed to get a Dáil majority to support intervention. He was (literally) the only TD to speak out in the chamber in favour of joining the Allies, and that was after US entry.

To get Ireland into WW2 you'd need a PoD decades earlier, perhaps without a significant War of Independence.

I agree, as we've said by the late 30's it's far too late to try and change things.
 
That could certainly be interesting alright, one of the things I would have been interested to see is if the '27/28 Naval Talks had ended up with the CnaG wishlist how that would have shaped Irish military planning/positions, though the RN counter suggestion would have been much more supportable (and still would have left the Irish Navy as something pre-46).

Huh, I hadn't been aware of those previously. Interesting reading!
 
What a shame Ireland wasn’t situated off the coast of a continental power of actual, rather than pretend, foreigners. Good ASB topic?

"pretend foreigners". The idea that the Irish are a British people is a persistent delusion among Britons, and I'd imagine has a lot to do with the British bewilderment regarding Ireland's refusal to lie down over Brexit.

I agree with you though, what a shame. The French and Spanish were far kinder to their minorities than the British were to the Irish.

Funny enough I already made an ASB like that two days ago: https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...d-south-to-the-cantabrian-sea-in-1160.441074/
 
Huh, I hadn't been aware of those previously. Interesting reading!

Yeah, I'd have to dig out the book to be certain but CnaG were talking about building up to something like a half squadron of Destroyers and a Light Cruiser, clearly not going to happen given the Depression, but if something of a naval build up was looked at rather than what happened, the RN counter offer was something like 2 Squadrons of Minesweepers to both build up the navy and patrol Irish Waters, much more reasonable but still a massive change from what we ended up with nothing/MTB's (and who within the DOD thought a couple of MTB's were a good idea for Irish waters is beyond me. One of the stories from the same book was when one was passing the other at the harbour mouth of Cobh, they told them not to bother about their next hull cleaning as they were able to inspect the hull when it cleared the water (just look at what Safehaven tests in)
 
Plus even if Dillon had been Taoiseach he'd never have managed to get a Dáil majority to support intervention. He was (literally) the only TD to speak out in the chamber in favour of joining the Allies, and that was after US entry.

To get Ireland into WW2 you'd need a PoD decades earlier, perhaps without a significant War of Independence.

As I said before a surviving Kevin O'Higgins is maybe the easiest path to an overtly pro-Allied Irish government - O'Higgins was very much prepared to work with the Dominion framework to try and woo the North.

Dev dying during the Civil War would also help - not because Dev was deeply anti-British (he wasn't) but because he successfully brought the anti-Treaty side in from the cold in a way I'm not convinced any of his allies could have managed.
 
As I said before a surviving Kevin O'Higgins is maybe the easiest path to an overtly pro-Allied Irish government - O'Higgins was very much prepared to work with the Dominion framework to try and woo the North.

Dev dying during the Civil War would also help - not because Dev was deeply anti-British (he wasn't) but because he successfully brought the anti-Treaty side in from the cold in a way I'm not convinced any of his allies could have managed.

Dev dying during the War of Independence would also have interesting butterflies (to put it mildly), opening up how the Talks might have gone, how the Civil War (since it was highly likely to happen even with him dead and a different Treaty) would play out and then as you say the 20 years afterwards as well.
 

Pangur

Donor
Yeah, I'd have to dig out the book to be certain but CnaG were talking about building up to something like a half squadron of Destroyers and a Light Cruiser, clearly not going to happen given the Depression, but if something of a naval build up was looked at rather than what happened, the RN counter offer was something like 2 Squadrons of Minesweepers to both build up the navy and patrol Irish Waters, much more reasonable but still a massive change from what we ended up with nothing/MTB's (and who within the DOD thought a couple of MTB's were a good idea for Irish waters is beyond me. One of the stories from the same book was when one was passing the other at the harbour mouth of Cobh, they told them not to bother about their next hull cleaning as they were able to inspect the hull when it cleared the water (just look at what Safehaven tests in)
Is there any links or the like that you could point me at?
 
Is there any links or the like that you could point me at?

I don't know if there's anything online, think it was a book I got a few years back on the history of Haulbowline/Irish Navy, I'll have a look through my books to get the actual name for it.
 
"pretend foreigners". The idea that the Irish are a British people is a persistent delusion among Britons, and I'd imagine has a lot to do with the British bewilderment regarding Ireland's refusal to lie down over Brexit.

I think you could go far further back than recent events in regards to that viewpoint, it's always been there, my brother lives/works in the UK for the moment and still gets that "you're part of us" up to and including "when will you consider rejoining?"
 
I don't know if there's anything online, think it was a book I got a few years back on the history of Haulbowline/Irish Navy, I'll have a look through my books to get the actual name for it.
McIvor's book? I skimmed it in a library a while ago.
 
McIvor's book? I skimmed it in a library a while ago.

I went and looked, it's from Daire Brunicardi, "Haulbowline, The Naval Base & ships of Cork Harbour". In it he quotes a position paper drawn up before a proposed 1927 Intergovernmental meeting drawn up by the Army staff that consisted of "1 protected Light Cruiser, 4 V class Destroyers, 1 Flower Class sloop, 8 "P" boats , 4 MTB's, 2 4,000 ton fleet "oil tank steamers", 2 steamers for mine/net laying and an ocean going tug" in total. The suggestion being it was modeled on other Dominion forces, and was to take over the defence of Irish Waters from the RN.

The meeting occurred in April 1927 and collapsed almost immediately due to Admiral Pound stating that he could only talk about Coastal forces under Article 6 of the Treaty and the Irish demanding that (guess what) the Treaty Ports being open to discussion. The RN counter offer was 8-20 "Mersey" class Minsweeping trawlers, or "twin screw 800 ton" minesweepers, though there's no class name (4" gun, a 12lb mount and light AA with a speed of 16 knots)
 
Was that from his local community or from sources from the Government?

Yes. To be fair, he was a bit of an outcast from the local community anyway, having had disagreements with a number of local worthies, so the local ostracisation was pretty much to be expected, and his helping the British fight against Germany may have simply been an excuse for the locals to make their feelings known, rather than it being a reason.

Government difficulties were at a low level, with police harassment over many issues (some of which were undoubtedly justified, given his relationship with legalities), but which did seem, by all accounts, to amount to victimisation. Whether one regards local police as being "sources from the Government" or members of the local community is something of an open question.

Whatever the actuality (and I emphasise that he was not the most reliable of sources), the reaction he received in the immediate aftermath of the war (in which he joined up to fight against Hitler and Germany, so naturally he spent most of his time out in Burma) turned someone who had actually fought for Irish independence into someone who never had a good word to say about the country.

When people say that those civilians who served in the British forces during the War faced no issues when they returned, well, that's not entirely accurate. It may be the generality, but the reality was a lot more complex than the initial assertion suggested.
 
Deserting the national army tends to result in you being considered a traitor, yes. Not sure many states feel that shouldn't be a fairly big deal.

Agreed - it doesn't mean blacklisting and treating as a pariah, especially when you have just helped defeat a monstrous tyrany, perhaps the most monstrous tyranny imaginable. A monstrous tyranny that their own nation didn't see fit to opose...............

Ah bit off there, many more than 5000 served in the British military during WW2, most suffered no such actions

i took my figures from the Irish Times and BBC. Apologies if they are off. They said 5000 serving soldiers joined the British Army.

As for the policy of Ireland during the War, given both the relationship with the UK and the damaged state the nation was still in post Civil War it shouldn't be surprising, however the reality is that the Allies received plenty of support from the state even then

oh good. Were there Irish fighter squadrons shooting down Nazi bombers during the battle of Britain? Did Irish naval units convoy all of their raw materials and oil supplies across the Atlantic and help keep that vital supply line open? Were there regiments from the Irish Republic on the beaches of Normandy fighting to throw the Nazi out? Did the Irish government evict Nazi intelligence from Dublin or let them run their embassy as normal? Lots of Irish men fought the Nazis, none of them under the Irish flag.

Ireland exported us lots of vital food. They did turn a blind eye to the Donegal corridor flights (one helping sink the Bismark) supporting the battle of the Atlantic and provided weather reports. However I suspect the same rights would have been granted to the Nazis. They allowed their men to serve and work abroad if they so wished but did not stop them from joining the Nazis. The small Irish merchant navy rescued shipwrecked sailors ( of both sides). They were happy to talk about how the British Army would come to their aid should the Nazis invade. Many politicians made statements supporting Hitler & the Taoiseach even signed a book of condolence on the death of Hitler.

I acknowledge that as the war went on the position of Ireland changed slightly ( as it had to when the Nazis were obviously losing) as is shown by he Cranborne report of 1945 but when times were hardest they turned their backs and chose neutrality.

Doesn't change the fact that those in power had little to no reason to have any faith in the UK Government of the day, nor does it change the fact that trying to "ally" with the UK before even the US had joined the war would have risked plunging the nation back into Civil War. Not too mention the fact that by 1940 the scale of what the NAZIS were wasn't known, you're using hindsight.

The evilitude of the Nazis was known - the Irish chose not to oppose it.

I don't think you get how badly England was regarded in much of Ireland. Yes, Nazis were bad, but England, oh, England....

erm: Henry VIII, Plantations, Confiscations, Cromwell, William of Orange, Potato famine, Easter rising, civil war. Bad. Terrible even. Not as bad as the Nazis.

Deserting the state during a national emergency is highly immoral.

But there wasn't an emergency facing Ireland. They chose not to take part in the hope Britain would fall and Ireland would be reunited. It might have been if the Nazis won, as a Quisling state at best. Those men chose fighting an evil tyranny over staying at home hoping it went away or left them alone. The men who left were the brave ones. They deserve our praise and thanks.

Irish prime minister De Valera did offend London by offering his condolences to the German ambassador in Dublin on the death of Hitler.

Madness.

If you were Irish in the Late 19th-Early 20th Century, England was basically Nazi Germany to you, unless you were from Ulster.

that isnt a given.
 
"pretend foreigners". The idea that the Irish are a British people is a persistent delusion among Britons, and I'd imagine has a lot to do with the British bewilderment regarding Ireland's refusal to lie down over Brexit.

It does seem that of all the neutral countries in the Second World War Ireland gets picked out as the worst betrayal. Reading contemporary commentary there's a sense that the UK was owed something by Ireland.

Of course, it also extends to the insulting notion that desertion from a body like the Defence Forces to a real army can hardly be considered a crime.

Edit: No one ever throws around accusations that the Swiss or the Swedes actually wanted the Germans to win.
 
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@MKD
Can I point out that three of the counties of Ulster were part of Eire/Irish Free State? And there as a substantial community of Catholics/Nationalists in the Six Counties, forming the majority in large parts of Fermanagh and Tyrone at least.

A community that suffered discrimination and violence from the Unionist government. Which boasted it ran a "Protestant state for a Protestant people".

So, for a lot of people in Ulster, the British state was in 1940 not noticeably better than Hitler's Germany.
 
It does seem that of all the neutral countries in the Second World War Ireland gets picked out as the worst betrayal. Reading contemporary commentary there's a sense that the UK was owed something by Ireland.

Of course, it also extends to the insulting notion that desertion from a body like the Defence Forces to a real army can hardly be considered a crime.

Edit: No one ever throws around accusations that the Swiss or the Swedes actually wanted the Germans to win.

Even when Swedish material was supplied to Germany through the war...
 
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