See my post at
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/gCpYlPUC7KU/lTsfyqKhDMUJ
***
I think it's totally unfair to group de Valera together with the "IRA
Nazoids" (in fact, he detained 500 of them without trial--in itself,
very authoritarian, but at least showing that they had very different
views of the war).
It is clear from Tim Pat Coogan's biography of de Valera and from Dermot
Keogh's book on twentieth century Ireland that de Valera wanted the
Allies to win. An appendix to Coogan's book spells out the quiet
cooperation between Ireland and the Allies in intelligence and other
matters...
As for Keogh's conclusions, I'll repost what I posted some time ago:
Also, see Dermot Keogh, _Twentieth Century Ireland: Nation and State_,
p. 110:
"The release of new archival material continues to show the extent to
which Irish neutrality was prepared to be friendly towards the Allies.
The findings to date can be summarised as follows: regular liason
between Allied and Irish military authorities and the preparation of
joint plans to defend the Irish state; intimate cooperation between G2
and Allied intelligence services; exchange of meteorological reports and
the forwarding of all information to Britain concerning the movement of
Axis planes, ships, and submarines in the Irish Sea; and permission
given to Allied aircraft to overfly a corridor of Irish territory in
northern Donegal for easier access to the Atlantic."
Furthermore, Irish policy toward captured Allied and German servicemen
(in case of forced landings or crashes in Irish territorial waters) was
effectively pro-Allied. The government distinguished between
operational and non-operational flights, and used this distinction to
hand back most British and American planes and their crews. By
contrast, almost all German airmen were interned. (Considering that
they were allowed to visit swimming baths, the local Curragh golf links,
and a tennis club, one can say that they were *slightly* better off than
had they been returned and reposted at the eastern front!) Keogh, btw,
estimates that the number of Irish citizens who went to
Northern Ireland or to Great Britain to enlist may have been as high as
30,000. (To put that in perspective, the Irish Republic's own army
didn't reach the figure of 37,000 until late 1940.) This certainly
confirms your point about widespread anti-Nazi sentiment among the Irish
people. And as Keogh notes, the Irish government did nothing to prevent
them from enlisting.
***
To this I would only add that even if Coogan and Keogh overrate de Valera's Allied sympathies, for him to get Eire into the war on the Axis side, he would have had to be both (1) loony and (2) far more of a dictator than he actually was (though as I noted he no doubt had an authoritarian streak).