Ireland joins WW2 and reunifies

Well, it wasn’t the “Irish Free State” of world war 2, frolicking in their moicro natiobslism.

Are Sovereign Nations allowed to pursue their own Foreign Policy as long as it's supported by their electorate? Some Nations were neutral and friendly to Germany, we were not.

I suppose it comes down what is the most effective use of strategic bombers- attacking German war industry or protecting Atlantic convoys. Regarding escort carriers- there was a war in the pacific. All comes down to risk and reward.

So your argument is that the Atlantic got worse the only option what so ever that would make sense would be invading Ireland, even though 40-41 Strategic bombing was "less than accurate/successful", the MAC's were first talked about in 1940 long before the Pacific, so yes they could have been an option, a far more sensible one that the situation you are proposing as I've highlighted all the issues that would bring. In other words it would have been far easier/quicker for the UK to take steps to acquire VLR aircraft for MPA, or merchant conversions for convoy escort than an invasion and occupation and development of infrastructure that what you seem to want.
 
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There was no active ethnic cleansing. Protestants weren't discriminated against in employment or social housing nor (after the Civil War) driven out of their homes. Many left because they had been part of the British administration or armed forces and so went "home". Others simply felt British rather than Irish or thought (probably correctly given the economic weakness of the Free State) job opportunities were better in the UK

I wonder would demographics also play into, given the smaller Protestant population how much of an impact did the WW1 losses within those families play into the long term figures on top of the areas that you've highlighted.
 
Yes- that's why the IRA was so quiet in the 1950s, because of the powerful Irish American lobby trumping the sentiments of non-Irish Americans about Ireland's conduct in WWII.

Not quite correct. The IRA conducted what is known as the border campaign during this time. It failed. Depending on what colour of glasses you use (orange/green) it was defeated by swift action of the RUC mobile reserve force (SWAT type unit), the B men, or that the Catholic population didn’t really want to have any part of it.
 
As the Northern Catholic main character's father says in Brian Moore's book The Emperor of Ice Cream (which was based on Moore's own wartime experiences) "when it comes to grinding down minorities, the German jackboot isn't half as hard as the heel of John Bull."
That was certainly the sentiment of many but it bore little reflection to reality. Ukrainean kulaks, Poles, German and European Jews, Croatian Serbs would all have literally killed to swap places with Ulster Catholics. Being put to the back of the queue for public housing and government jobs isn't nice and I am not defending it. But it isn't engineered famine or "resettlement camps " with blocks marked "Showers " which aren't either.
 
There was no active ethnic cleansing. Protestants weren't discriminated against in employment or social housing nor (after the Civil War) driven out of their homes. Many left because they had been part of the British administration or armed forces and so went "home". Others simply felt British rather than Irish or thought (probably correctly given the economic weakness of the Free State) job opportunities were better in the UK

I note the word “home” this is exactly the problem with the green tinted glasses. Like a certain politician in Belfast stated “the armed struggle will continue until the last Protestant is on the last boat out of Belfast.” This rings home prods ain’t welcome.

Before we get excited, remember different people have different views depending on what version they were taught. Neither are necessarily correct.

As for being British, that last of the pure ancient British Celtic tribes are recorded as being in the Youghal - Dungarvan area. The English are Anglo-Saxon (Germans) and the invasion by the “British/English” were Norman (French)
 
There was no active ethnic cleansing. Protestants weren't discriminated against in employment or social housing nor (after the Civil War) driven out of their homes. Many left because they had been part of the British administration or armed forces and so went "home". Others simply felt British rather than Irish or thought (probably correctly given the economic weakness of the Free State) job opportunities were better in the UK
Yes there was.
I refer you to, for example, the research of Luke Gibbons regarding the murders of protestants in West Cork or (for a more general overview of "ethnically targeted violence") the work of Peter Hart, e.g. The IRA at War (2003). I quote from that work.
"Similar campaigns of what might be termed 'ethnic cleansing' were waged in parts of Kings and Queens Counties [Offaly and Laois], South Tipperary, Leitrim, Mayo, Limerick, Westmeath, Louth and Cork. Worst of all was the massacre of 14 men in West Cork in April [1922], after an IRA officer had been killed breaking into a house."

Yes they were.
One common mechanism to isolate protestants, employed frequently by the catholic church into the 1950s, was to forbid catholics from entering a protestant church, keeping them from attending marriages of non-catholic friends.
In 1957 there was the infamous case of Sheila Cloney, in Fethard-on-Sea. A Protestant (and a woman) who dared defy the order from the parish priest that the children of her mixed marriage (she was married to a catholic man named Sean Cloney) be raised as catholics (the Ne Temere decree). In response, the PP and bishop (the infamous Michael Brown, protector of the child molesting priest Sean Fortune) called for catholics to boycott local protestants and their businesses; most, unfortunately, complied.
As detailed in the records of Irish Distress Committee thousands of protestants fled the new state in the period 1922-26. This wasn't the only such incident; there was the Tilson case, where Article 44 was used to support the catholic church. The Ne Temere decree was used to reduce numbers within the state
Arguably the introduction of mandatory fluency in Irish for public appointments was discriminatory against protestants.
I refer you for more information to Deirdre Nuttall's work for the National Folklore Collection in UCD, though Robin Bury's Buried Lives is more accessible.
 
As for being British, that last of the pure ancient British Celtic tribes are recorded as being in the Youghal - Dungarvan area. The English are Anglo-Saxon (Germans) and the invasion by the “British/English” were Norman (French)

So the second World War was fought between the Germans and the Germans while the British stayed neutral then?

Or are you reaching into the dark ages and pre-nation state era so you can use anachronistic terms to make the imperialist suggestion that the Irish are part of some British family of "nations" whether the Paddies like it or not?
 
As @white crowe and @RossN has said Ireland seems to be singled out, there was the Swiss and the Swedes, and Portugal and Spain, all of whom conducted themselves as they saw fit and as they judged their nation to need, yet it's Ireland that has the issue?

Both Portugal and Spain was not democratic at material time, so their issues was somehow resolved through the subsequent democratic revolution which say "No!" to the problematic history. One could support the view that Spain should be sanctioned for nazi collaboration, perhaps?

Swiss and Swedes can use the excuse of military threats, but there are also increasing criticism against Switzerland in recent years.

However, the aforesaid is not applicable for Ireland's Case, as Ireland was arguably not facing nazi military threats and the Irish people is free to participate in national governance.
 

longsword14

Banned
Swiss and Swedes can use the excuse of military threats, but there are also increasing criticism against Switzerland in recent years.
Mostly nonsense. The Swiss barely affected German war production, and behaved well, morally speaking. The whole lawsuit thing seemed to be an extortion attempt, decades later.
Interestingly, the US had more trade with Nazi Germany than Switzerland.
 
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Mostly nonsense. The Swiss barely affected German war production, and behave well, morally speaking. The whole lawsuit thing seemed to be an extortion attempt, decades later.
Interestingly, the US had more trade with Nazi Germany than Switzerland.

The Bergier commission in Bern was formed by the Swiss government did not think so.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergier_commission#Some_summary_conclusions

The Commission concluded that the dual responsibilities of a democratic state to its own people and to the international community were not met during the period examined, and were often ignored during the fifty year post-war period.
 

longsword14

Banned
The Bergier commission in Bern was formed by the Swiss government did not think so.
The charge of 'nonsense' was for the money which was demanded. The settlement reached was by use of American muscle, not some sensible estimate.
I will get back once I get hold of Between the Alps and a Hard Place. I remember that the settlement was not reached by some judgement over value but was simply what the Swiss needed to shell out so that they had no further problems with business in the US.
 
Yes they were.

While the next temere decree and it's legal enforcement is a shameful episode in the country's past, any discussion of the economic treatment of Protestants should acknowledge that they held a broadly privileged economic position.

The Life and Death of Protestant Business in Ireland highlights that Protestants were over represented in many professional and managerial sectors of the economy.

The minority was strongly overrepresented in the higher echelons of all business activities,
including agriculture. Twenty eight per cent of farm holdings of more than 200 acres were in
Protestant hands. Across most industrial sectors 30 to 40 per cent of male ‘employers and
managers’ were Protestant, with around 20 per cent in construction and related activities.

This state of affairs would broadly have continued to the 60's.

Hostility and discrimination towards Protestants in Ireland had elements based in class, economics, ethnicity, religion and the military needs of a guerilla army and disentangling the drivers in individual cases can be difficult.
 
Or are you reaching into the dark ages and pre-nation state era so you can use anachronistic terms to make the imperialist suggestion that the Irish are part of some British family of "nations" whether the Paddies like it or not?

Just pointing out the terms, Irish, British or English are bandied about to suit those who like to keep the sectarian bonfire we’ll kindled, and without a proper knowledge of where they come from.
 
Gerrymandering is an Irish invention and was practiced extensively by the Northern Ireland government.

Gerrymandering the UUP political wing of the Orange Order got 74,000 votes 43% yet 70% seats, nationalists 13% of votes & 17% of seats, non-orange order (independent Unionist) 21% of the vote 6% of seats.
 
Swedes probably would want the Germans to win in the East at all events and hard to blame them really. Apparently in occupied Poland 1939-41 people thought themselves lucky to be in the zone occupied by the Nazis rather than that occupied by the USSR. That is how bad Stalinist Russia was. David Garnett recounts in his history of the PWE how leaflets were dropped on Russian and Ukrainian troops fighting for the Germans telling them that if they surrendered the Allies would ensure their repatriation to Russia/Ukraine . This had the unexpected result of stiffening their resolve and making them fight even harder!
Turning to the Irish situation, neither side has a monopoly of heroes or villains and, from my reading of the subject, both traditions have more to be ashamed of them to take pride in. Bigotry, intimidation, political murder, blind eye being turned to clerics abusing their position, tendency to regard the "cause" as a personal piggy bank, murderous internal feuds common to both nationalists and unionists in Ireland.
 
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