What if Ireland was on the side of the Axis in World War Two?

[RNG]

What if Ireland joined the axis? How would this happen? Would a suppression of Irish independence cause the Irish to be inspired by fascist movements in Europe? Perhaps who ever rises up in Ireland might side with Oswald Mosley both helping each other get into power. If the British Union of Fascists got enough seats in parliament might British entry into World War Two be halted? Perhaps a Nazi invasion of Poland is allowed? What would happen afterwards? What would Ireland look like today? What would its relationship to Britain be? What you think?

 

[Asp]

Alien Space Bats on heroin.

The British Union of Fascists was a fringe band of thugs that never had any real support. Not going to happen, not ever.

What major party in the Republic of Ireland wanted to join the Nazis? There was none.

If ASBs hijacked the minds of a plurality of the Irish government and armed forces and made them do it (in which case this is in the wrong forum) the British would invade and fold them up like a paper airplane in a couple of months.

 

[The Red]

This is your fourth thread in six hours, maybe you should slow down a little?

 

[Pangur]

This is your fourth thread in six hours, maybe you should slow down a little?

Your OP if to be honest of the wall. The answer is dead simple, not going to happen and having the BUF as a enabler shows that knowledge of both the UK and Ireland is to polite about weak

 

[Ak-84]

Ireland would get a British administered arsekicking no 714. They only barely avoided it OTL.m
After the War, Ireland can officially forget about Independence. For good.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

Ní seans in ifreann. Céard atá ann d'Éirinn? Ní dhéanfaidh aon ní!

 

[Von Tyrconnell]

Both Éamon de Valera and opposition leader Richard Mulcahy estimated Irish public opinion as being pro-Axis, but actually joining the Axis would be plainly suicidal without at least a much stronger German navy and air force. Even the Irish fascist party Ailtirí na hAiséirghe were pro-neutrality.

After the War, Ireland can officially forget about Independence. For good.

I doubt that would be the end of Irish nationalism, the British had a lot of trouble maintaining control of NI despite having a majority Unionist population, a Troubles involving all of Ireland will stretch their resources far harder.

 

[Ak-84]

if Ireland has just been pro-German in a War, then it becomes politically feasible to do lots of things the British could not do IOTL. For one, control of Ireland is seen as a national security imperative, so much harsher measures are undertaken, unlike IOTL, when the British establishment wanted nothing more than to be rid of the "Irish question".
Its 1798 not 1918 ITTL.

 

[David T]

I'll recycle my standard post on Ireland joining the war:

***

On Ireland joining the war:

With the Axis, forget it, despite a few IRA Nazi sympathizers who had no significant public support. With the Allies, a bit less implausible, but still quite unlikely. There were some politicians like James Dillon who favored siding with the Allies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Dillon but Dillon could not even get the support of his own party, Fine Gael, for this position, and left the party for some years.

On the whole, neutrality was popular. This does not mean that there was no sympathy for the Allies--if nothing else, the considerable number of Irish citizens who went to Northern Ireland or to Great Britain to enlist shows that such sympathies existed. And as I argued in http://groups.google.com/group/soc.history.what-if/msg/cd57a651cca65323 despite his public defiance of Britain, de Valera did quietly cooperate with the Allies within the framework of formal neutrality.

Besides, war upsets traditional society, and if de Valera was anything, he was a traditionalist: "the romping of sturdy children, the contest of athletic youths and the laughter of happy maidens" etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ireland_That_We_Dreamed_Of

 

[Von Tyrconnell]

if Ireland has just been pro-German in a War, then it becomes politically feasible to do lots of things the British could not do IOTL. For one, control of Ireland is seen as a national security imperative, so much harsher measures are undertaken, unlike IOTL, when the British establishment wanted nothing more than to be rid of the "Irish question".
Its 1798 not 1918 ITTL.

1798-style repression and massacres in a modern western country will backfire horribly in an era of decolonisation and mass media, creating martyrs and international outrage.

 

[lordroel]

What if Ireland joined the axis? How would this happen? Would a suppression of Irish independence cause the Irish to be inspired by fascist movements in Europe? Perhaps who ever rises up in Ireland might side with Oswald Mosley both helping each other get into power. If the British Union of Fascists got enough seats in parliament might British entry into World War Two be halted? Perhaps a Nazi invasion of Poland is allowed? What would happen afterwards? What would Ireland look like today? What would its relationship to Britain be? What you think?

This would happen: British plan to invade Ireland in 1940

Churchill had many plans during World War II, including a preventive war with the Soviet Union after the fall of Nazi Germany-as did every other leader, but while we now about the German plan to invade Ireland during World War II in Operation Green, it seems that Churchill also had made a plan to invade Ireland as in 1940, he was urged to invade Ireland by Northern Ireland Prime Minister Lord Craigavon, AKA James Craig, a rock ribbed unionist, who believed that Eamon De Valera, the Irish prime minister, had fallen under Nazi sway and a crossborder invasion was needed to remove him and thus he urged Churchill to send British troops composed chiefly of Scottish and Welsh divisions to install a military governor for the whole of Ireland with his HQ in Dublin who would secure the valuable naval bases along the Irish coastline.

Craigavon also told Churchill that distributing propaganda leaflets in Gaelic and English should be used to persuade the Irish that the Scottish and Welsh divisions were there to defend them. Churchill did not do much at first with this invasion idea but later prepared detailed plans for an invasion of southern Ireland.

Field Marshal Montgomery stated in his memoirs: “I was told to prepare plans for the seizure of Cork and Queenstown in southern Ireland so the harbors could be used as naval bases.”

Any invasion of Ireland by Scottish and Welsh divisions would be over quickly with them being able to take control over the country with out much resistance, but for the IRA this would an absolute gift who would have launched waves after wave of guerrilla attacks. “Occupying Ireland would have been an extremely messy and costly undertaking.”

Also attempting to “camouflage” a British invasion by using Scottish or Welsh divisions would have backfired as “Many of the Black and Tans, the British auxiliaries sent to suppress Irish independence, were Scots and they had an appalling reputation”.

In the end this plan was never implemented, Ireland stayed neutral throughout the war, but Irish prime minister De Valera did offend London by offering his condolences to the German ambassador in Dublin on the death of Hitler.

 

[Ak-84]

1798-style repression and massacres in a modern western country will backfire horribly in an era of decolonisation and mass media, creating martyrs and international outrage.

Against a country that was seen and was actually, a Nazi supporter? Nah. They'd say they had it coming.

 

[ShortsBelfast]

1798-style repression and massacres in a modern western country will backfire horribly in an era of decolonisation and mass media, creating martyrs and international outrage.

If you were talking about a POD in 1918-23 that left Ireland shackled to Britain yes I would agree with you completely.

But if Ireland had been mad enough to join the Axis? The term would be "denazification" and the world's media and diplomatic services would studiously ignore the situation. Particularly if the British were subtle enough to put a puppet/collaborationist/genuine anti-Nazi regime in place rather than go for outright annexation. I don't know of any mass campaigns against the Nuremberg hangings or public revulsion at the lynching of Mussolini and his mistress.

 

[Von Tyrconnell]

Against a country that was seen and was actually, a Nazi supporter? Nah. They'd say they had it coming.

Didn't work for the Soviets or the Serbs.

I don't know of any mass campaigns against the Nuremberg hangings or public revulsion at the lynching of Mussolini and his mistress.

There's a vast difference between hanging infamous fascist dictators and war criminals and the likes of Bloody Sunday.

 

[fastmongrel]

If Ireland joined the Axis where would they get the supplies needed for a modern country. Everything Ireland imported came from Britain, via Britain or in British ships travelling in British convoys. Virtually everything Ireland exported went to Britain and the rest to the US again in British ships travelling in British convoys. Irish people working in Britain, N America and the Empire sending money home to Mammy were a big part of Irelands cash economy, the Irish Currency was linked to the £ Sterling for that reason.

DeValera might have been a right wing reactionary crackpot who got into power via the barrel of a gun but he wasnt insane enough to kick the big boy next door in the balls.

 

[ShortsBelfast]

There's a vast difference between hanging infamous fascist dictators and war criminals and the likes of Bloody Sunday.

There were actually three or four incidents in postwar Germany and the Sudeten during 1946-48 that were as bad or worse than Bloody Sunday -involving British, American, Czech or Russian troops. As with Bloody Sunday, probably unarmed civilians protesting a government/occupation authority decision were fired upon by troops. Did any of them cause half the consternation or condemnation of Bloody Sunday? Do any of them survive in popular memory? No, because these were "Nazis" who "had it coming".
And Mussolini's mistress? Essentially hanged for sleeping with the wrong guy. If put through a normal judicial process, the worst she would have got would have been five years for financially benefitting from the proceeds of war crime.

Didn't work for the Soviets or the Serbs.

Up to a point it did- the Serbs got to politically dominate Croatia for 35 years on the strength of wartime Croat callaboration. And the Soviets got to depopulate East Prussia and rather brutally suppress the 1953 demonstrations in East Germany without much furore. It was the coups in Romania (not a significant adversary for the Western allies) and Czechoslovakia (wartime ally) and rigged elections in Poland (wartime ally) that Western public opinion objected to. And then Hungary in 1956 was not by any stretch of the imagination led by a clique of Nazi collaborators.
As I said, if Ireland had been insane enough to join the Nazis - which they were not - then there would have been no international reservoir of public goodwill and sympathy to oppose the elimination or imprisonment of their political class or enforced exile of senior clergy who were seen as supporting these positions (as with Germany and Austria). Countries that are quick to condemn any use of force by Britain in Ireland suffered from war and occupation too.

 

[Ak-84]

At best, I see the British permitting some sort of "Government" in nominal charge. The King was still head of state, they would have sent in a Gov Gen, with real powers, have stationed troops up and down the country, “guided” Irish foreign policy.

 

[Ak-84]

I think some posters are forgetting just how much being perceived as not being anti-Nazi enough was a foreign policy handicap for decades after the war. Ireland suffered from that IOTL. For example it could not join the UN for many years.

Look at the UN Applications from 1947. Several countries get refused after several attempts. Pakistan, all of a month old, gets in.

If Ireland was seen as an active Nazi supporter, then the British could have done what the hell they wanted with scarcely a protest.

 

[CalBear]

Ní seans in ifreann. Céard atá ann d'Éirinn? Ní dhéanfaidh aon ní!

As has been stated often in the past - If we get a report about a post claiming it violates policy and it is in a language we can't read the report is accepted at face value unless an English translation is included.

Not a difficult concept. The Mods are not going to waste time trying to figure out what is being posted if y'all can't be bothered to be polite.

Kicked for a week.

EDIT/UPDATE:

This action has been reduced to a warning following explanation.

 

[Napoleonrules]

I think some posters are forgetting just how much being perceived as not being anti-Nazi enough was a foreign policy handicap for decades after the war. Ireland suffered from that IOTL. For example it could not join the UN for many years.

Look at the UN Applications from 1947. Several countries get refused after several attempts. Pakistan, all of a month old, gets in.

If Ireland was seen as an active Nazi supporter, then the British could have done what the hell they wanted with scarcely a protest.

I agree. And don't forget how Spain, even though the West could use every anti-Communist country it could get on its side (including neo-fascist); Spain was a pariah until 1980 all because it was pro-NAZI.