Nazi invasion of Southern Ireland

If they occupied Dublin the Nazis would no doubt have set up a Quisling government.

De Valera, for all his faults, would NOT be part of it
 
Blueshirts

If his health permits O'Duffy would be the logical Irish Quisling. He died in 1944.

Hitler did bring up an invasion of either Ireland and/or Iceland as an alternative to Sea Lion of which he was never very enamored. Supposedly some sort of preliiminary plans were drawn up for each. I saw the plans for the Iceland invasion in a military magazine once. It involved a large liner and a mountain division.

Tom
 
A nazi invasion might have been successful but would it would have lead to a quicker end to ww2 and would only unite Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland against a common enemy and after the war it would lead to a fully united country.
 
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What Southern Ireland? If you're referring to the home rule region, that lasted only three days max.

It still often gets called Southern Ireland though. Lets you say you mean just the Republic without sounding all pretentious by saying 'The Republic of Ireland' or speaking foreign with 'Eire'.
 
There would be little point in attempting an invasion as they were deterred from carrying out operation Sea Lion. Invading Eire would have involved greater distances in an area where Britain would have had naval supremacy and air cover would have been limited. It would have been in Britain's interests for any attempt to have been made as the ionvaders could have been cut off and De Valera would almost certainly have had to request assistance at which stage Britain would be able to demand the use of the 3 treaty ports. The Irish American lobby would have turned from neutrality to hostility to Germany

Britain considered siezing the 3 treaty ports but it was regarded as more trouble than it was worth as Eire was supplying volunteers for the armed forces many of whom would have resisted a British invasion. Collaborators would have been fairly few, possibly from the extermes. O Duffy's blue shirts who went to Spain to fight for Franco and the IRA who fought for the Republicans but opporturnistically worked with Nazi Germany in 1939. De Valera would have either tried to have been a Churchill or more probably would have been a spent force having not exactly been prominent in the fight for Independence unlike Collins and whose opposition to the treaty was more political posturing than armed resistance. As it was more people from Eire enlisted than from Northern Ireland, an invasion would have increased the ranks of the allies. Eire would probably have joined NATO and would have been in the UN earlier as the Soviet Union would have no excuse for a veto
 
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