The Republic of Ireland in the Second World War

One interesting butterfly is if the Western allies are helped so mucvh by Ireland's involvement, thenyhey get to Prague fist. The Czech Republic is a charter member of NAto and the home of large US military bases.
 
Effects on the actual war would be minimal, they were already doing a hell of a lot to help Britain on the sly.

Effects on Ireland and the post-war situation however....interesting...Could it push Ireland into NATO? Could it lead to more public hatred for the IRA- attacking our friends the Brits like that!-?
 
Effects on the actual war would be minimal, they were already doing a hell of a lot to help Britain on the sly.

Effects on Ireland and the post-war situation however....interesting...Could it push Ireland into NATO? Could it lead to more public hatred for the IRA- attacking our friends the Brits like that!-?

Tyr

Possibly, if it meant that Britain, possibly triggered by the closer relationship with Ireland, did something about the 'loyalist' element in Ulster and discrimination against the Catholic minority. While the IRA were the main reason why the OTL troubles were so bloody and destructive and quickly degenerated into a parasitical organisation there were serious problems with the way the province was governed before the 1970s when London started forcing reforms. [Unfortunately by that time an unholy if unofficial, alliance between the IRA and it's loyalist equivalents managed to cripple many of them.:mad:]

Steve
 
This is pretty interesting. I'm guessing Ireland's contribution would be rather limited until America's entry into the war. Certainly the Battle of the Atlantic will be a bit easier given extensive air and naval bases on the island. Once the US becomes involved Ireland will probably allow large amounts of US troops to be stationed there. Irish troops will take part in Operation Torch and Husky. But their biggest contribution will come at D-Day. It's likely Ireland will be used as a staging base for some of the US forces partaking in Overlord.

Having suffered together from direct bombing, naval losses and extensive military casualties the US will be far more willing to put pressure on Britain to ensure that the Irish situation is resolved in a fair manner post-war. I could easily see JFK traveling to Ireland to commemorate Ireland's role in winning WWII and founding NATO. Throughout the Cold War, several US air wings will be stationed in Ireland and it is likely that a brigade from Ireland will be stationed in Germany.

Perhaps with Ireland in the war and things going worse for Germany in their attempt to starve the British Isles, Hitler will put more pressure on Spain to enter the war on the Axis side. With just a few butterflies one can imagine that Hitler focuses a bit more on North Africa in an effort to inflict a final defeat on Britain that will push them out of the War.

Just some thoughts.

Benjamin
 
What cultural effects will massive amounts of foreign personnel and foreign money have on Ireland?

Pre-"Celtic Tiger," I was under the impression Ireland was very poor and culturally dominated by a particularly grim sort of Catholicism.
 
What cultural effects will massive amounts of foreign personnel and foreign money have on Ireland?

Pre-"Celtic Tiger," I was under the impression Ireland was very poor and culturally dominated by a particularly grim sort of Catholicism.

Indeed, up until the 1960's many Irish restaurants wouldn't serve meat on Fridays in compliance with Catholic doctrines. Having several thousand horny GI's running around 20 years earlier would certainly have caused earlier pressure for liberalisation! :D

There's a good point made upthread about how Britain might have been forced to address the grievances of NI Nationalists. Britain had left NI to it's own devices post partition and as a result there was little knowledge of what was really going on. It was only as a result of the efforts of Gerry Fitt and the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960's that Britain finally woke up and began pressing Stormont to reform. Had that happened earlier then the IRA campaign in the 1950's and The Troubles could be butterflied away. It would probably have meant Britain forcing out the sectarian bigot Basil Brooke as Stormont PM much earlier than IOTL.
 
Indeed, up until the 1960's many Irish restaurants wouldn't serve meat on Fridays in compliance with Catholic doctrines. Having several thousand horny GI's running around 20 years earlier would certainly have caused earlier pressure for liberalisation! :D

I was thinking something a bit scarier, like the Magdalene Laundries. :eek:

(To be fair, they weren't all "teen girl gulags"--Sinead O'Connor was educated in one after her mom got busted for using her to steal from stores and even received a guitar as a gift from a nun.)

Horny GIs + teen girls + culture that would put girls in laundries for years for real or perceived sexual immorality = potential international incident.

"In other news today, a band of GIs invaded a convent in Dublin..."
 
Oh dear, I spy with my little eye a lot of Irish-Italian/African/Polish/(every other ethnicity in America) American army brats being raised in those NATO bases after the war :rolleyes:
 
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I'd think an Ireland that actively participated in WWII would be a slam-dunk to enter NATO. Their contribution will be small, of course, but they'd probably contribute a brigade on the ground and some aircraft to NORTHAG, reinforcing to a division on mobilization. Light units of the Irish navy would help with mine warfare and ASW in the Channel and the approaches to the British Isles.

Take a look at Canada, the Netherlands, and Belgium as models.
 
Thinking about Ireland joining NATO, what it really depends on is what the publics view on entering WW2 is. As Thande says, they enter due to the bombing of Leinster House and the killing of most of the government, so they're entering for vengence,

Irelands positon on the otherside of Britain means that they aren't under direct threat from the now Communist eastern Europe (at least untill ICBMs start getting pumped out), unlike say Belgium or the Netherlands who would get Blitzed through if the Cold War goes hot. So as an alliance against the Red Menace, that's out.
Joining NATO might even encourage the Soviets to support the rather Marxist branches of the IRA.

I think that once the war is over the Irish people may prefer to sink back into neutrality rather then continue funding an armed forces that that really only exists to give the veterans of the WoI and Civil War something to do.

But entering NATO makes them so much more awesome :D
 
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Laurentia

Banned
If Ireland fought for the Allies during the war, I think they'd end up joining NATO, presuming it's still formed. OTL they refused because it would have meant accepting the N. Irish border.

If Ireland had not been so rigidly neutral in OTL, it might've. In this Timeline, it has a reason too.
 
Thinking about Ireland joining NATO, what it really depends on is what the publics view on entering WW2 is. As Thande says, they enter due to the bombing of Leinster House and the killing of most of the government, so they're entering for vengence,

Irelands positon on the otherside of Britain means that they aren't under direct threat from the now Communist eastern Europe (at least untill ICBMs start getting pumped out), unlike say Belgium or the Netherlands who would get Blitzed through if the Cold War goes hot. So as an alliance against the Red Menace, that's out.
Joining NATO might even encourage the Soviets to support the rather Marxist branches of the IRA.

I think that once the war is over the Irish people may prefer to sink back into neutrality rather then continue

Canada was a charter member of NATO IIRC, and she certainly wasn't under threat of invasion directly. Nor, directly, was Britain. Any realistic threat to Britain in the modern era is a potential threat to Ireland as well. Again IIRC, Iceland's joining of NATO was highly unpopular at home but it happened anyway.

Ireland is going to have forged some strong ties with the US and UK during four years of warfare. The momentum is on the side of alliance.
 
Canada was a charter member of NATO IIRC, and she certainly wasn't under threat of invasion directly. Nor, directly, was Britain. Any realistic threat to Britain in the modern era is a potential threat to Ireland as well. Again IIRC, Iceland's joining of NATO was highly unpopular at home but it happened anyway.

Ireland is going to have forged some strong ties with the US and UK during four years of warfare. The momentum is on the side of alliance.

Canada and Britain were key members of the Allies during the war, and Britain was still a Great Power when NATO was formed, hence they were key to making the whole thing work.
Yes, but neutrality can be viewed as the strongest shield.

I know that it is more likely, I'm just coming up with a reason why it wouldn't happen. As I said via edit before I saw your post, Ireland in NATO sounds kinda awesome :)
 
I was thinking something a bit scarier, like the Magdalene Laundries. :eek:

(To be fair, they weren't all "teen girl gulags"--Sinead O'Connor was educated in one after her mom got busted for using her to steal from stores and even received a guitar as a gift from a nun.)

Horny GIs + teen girls + culture that would put girls in laundries for years for real or perceived sexual immorality = potential international incident.

"In other news today, a band of GIs invaded a convent in Dublin..."

:D

The biggest impact I think would have been the sight of all these well paid and modern young Americans in a country whose social structure was still largely pre-WW1. Irish youth would have begun imitating them and over time that would have built up pressure for social change much earlier than IOTL. Ireland was far later than the rest of Europe in liberalising so while the Magdalenes might have had more "clients" for a while, they could have been shut earlier.
 
Would there really be so many Americans in Ireland? I doubt it.
Outside of a few naval bases and air fields for the Atlantic War there's not much reason to have foreign troops in Ireland. And with the treaty ports being not too long in the past having foreigners around in some parts of Ireland was quite normal and expected.
Sure, the yanks would be a bit...larger...than the Brits but still, these would be small numbers of navy/air corps folk, not GIs en masse.

Canada was a charter member of NATO IIRC, and she certainly wasn't under threat of invasion directly. Nor, directly, was Britain. Any realistic threat to Britain in the modern era is a potential threat to Ireland as well. Again IIRC, Iceland's joining of NATO was highly unpopular at home but it happened anyway.

Ireland is going to have forged some strong ties with the US and UK during four years of warfare. The momentum is on the side of alliance.

Canada was. Sort of. There was a big belief in the arctic being a vital front in a future war with Russia.
 
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Would there really be so many Americans in Ireland? I doubt it.
Outside of a few naval bases and ports for the Atlantic War there's not much reason to have foreign troops in Ireland. And with the treaty ports being not too long in the past having foreigners around in some parts of Ireland was quite normal and expected.
Sure, the yanks would be a bit...larger...than the Brits but still, these would be small numbers of navy/air corps folk, not GIs en masse

There were GI's stationed in NI in the run up to D Day, my wife's grandmother lived just outside Gilford in County Down and there was a large contingent of American soldiers living in a tented camp beside her father's farm. There was another camp near Cranfield in Co Down and others elsewhere. Had the Republic been willing to accept them I suspect they would have received some.
 
Would there really be so many Americans in Ireland? I doubt it.
Outside of a few naval bases and ports for the Atlantic War there's not much reason to have foreign troops in Ireland. And with the treaty ports being not too long in the past having foreigners around in some parts of Ireland was quite normal and expected.
Sure, the yanks would be a bit...larger...than the Brits but still, these would be small numbers of navy/air corps folk, not GIs en masse.

Quite a lot of the flat space in Britain was turned into either airfields or camps. Well over 10,000 aircraft and hundreds of thousands of ground troops, not to mention supplies and equipment galore were crammed in there. Thousands of ships and landing craft were based there. Some people joked that the island was likely to sink if one more Yank landed. :)

If Ireland is part of the Allies plenty of troops and aircraft will be stationed on her soil. Her ministers will be involved in policy discussions on a regular basis. Her military will use a mix of US and British equipment. Her senior officers will attend staff college back in the US or in Britain. Planning sessions, loaned instructors, local purchase of food, field exercises... the list goes on.

There were GI's stationed in NI in the run up to D Day, my wife's grandmother lived just outside Gilford in County Down and there was a large contingent of American soldiers living in a tented camp beside her father's farm. There was another camp near Cranfield in Co Down and others elsewhere. Had the Republic been willing to accept them I suspect they would have received some.

Yup. A couple of million Americans passed through Britain during the war, not to mention tens of thousands of Canadians, Free French and Polish, etc. By mid-1944 Britain was one giant military base. Ireland will get its share.
 

Thande

Donor
Some interesting discussion here. I particularly like the idea of social changes wrought by GIs (it happened even in the UK, and we were far more sophisticated) but Leej's point is also correct--there's less reason for American troops to be stationed in Ireland.

By the way, Ireland was a Dominion during World War Two. The Irish Ambassador in Berlin carried letters of introduction accredited from the Court of Saint James and signed by King George IV.

The Republic of Ireland came into being in 1949.
This is incorrect. The Republic of Ireland came into being in 1937. 1949 was when the Republic of Ireland left the Commonwealth. If your note about the German ambassador is correct, this will simply have been a holdover understandable given the chaos in Europe around the time Ireland adopted its republican constitution in 1937.
 
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