Why did Ireland stay neutral during WW2? After the great backstab

>>3174628
The Anglo arrogance shown in this post gives a good indicator why.

>>3175006
I know about the whole "muh fighting english wars" but WW2 wasn't a war for England, it was a war for humanity; Nazi Germany was objectively evil.

Was it just a case of "lol who cares if they're gassing millions of innocents I'm not fighting for good because MUH ANGLOOOS"

>>3174628
>regain honour by fighting evil
Declaring war on Britain wouldn't go well for them.

Because they didn't want to fight a war for other people. Because they didn't have an oppressive imperialist sphere of influence to force other nations into. The war would have done them no good, even if Germany did happen to have a ruler who was genuinely evil. Which it did, of course, I'm not denying that.

File: 1498670442043.jpg (70KB, 447x447px) Image search: [Google]

70KB, 447x447px

>overthinking it

Let's take a look at Ireland at the time WW2 broke out.
They had both communist and fascist movements to deal with running up and down their country while the IRA at the time also pursued their own agenda.

They had lost a generation to the combined efforts of WW1 Conscription by the British, the War of Independence and then the Irish Civil War.

Their country was absolutely still in the "barely getting back to its feet" stage and the country was rife with internal issues.
Let's not forget that their industry (never mind specifically their war industry) was not exactly stellar and they could have provided very, very, very little to the war effort in terms of both manpower and equipment, not to mention the fact that most of their "soldiers"-if they had seen combat at all-were more used to guerilla fighting than regular combat.

Let's also not forget the fact that things didn't really look good for Britain at one point. Easy for us to say "why not join the good guys" but to Ireland, Britain were the bad guys who they'd just got rid of and Germany were the new boys in charge.

Despite this, however, Ireland maintained a neutral-in-favour-of-allies stance, being just about as helpful to allies as they could be while maintaining their neutral status. Whether it was sending downed British pilots north while imprisoning Krauts or feeding information on weather or positions through to England, they were absolutely leaning pro-allies.

They even turned down Northern Ireland, which was offered to them in return for their formal joining of the allies. Northern Ireland weren't even informed of this until DECADES later.

Simply put, Ireland through neutrality demonstrated a strength greater than they probably could have done by joining the allies/axis and fucking their newly formed country up even more.

De Valera is a filthy rat but he did a good job handling "The Emergency" as they called it.

>>3174628
What do you expect a poor country of 2-3 million people (at the time) to do?

>>3174628
It was feared by the Irish leadership that entering the war on the side of the Allies would lead to a second Irish civil war as Irish public opinion was pro-German.

>De Valera stressed that to enter the war under any circumstances would be divisive and that even if Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael were agreed on the issue they would not be able to carry the country with them, adding that ‘the people were pro-German and ... this would drive whatever instinct they had now the other way completely on the German side’.

>Whereas the overall attitude of the ‘plain people of Ireland’ throughout the war is to be found in J. J. Horgan’s oft-quoted encounter with a West Cork farmer – ‘We would like to see the English nearly bate’ – by the summer of 1940, the apparent likelihood of a Nazi victory produced ‘considerable defeatist pro-German sentiment in Dublin aside from Republican Army. If enemy struck before Fifth Column is jailed conditions would be very serious.’

>Irish government circles began to believe that a German invasion was looming. The escalating sense of trepidation in Dublin was exacerbated by the first in a series of British warnings about the likelihood of invasion, when on 1 June 1940 F. H. Boland received a letter from the United Kingdom legation stating that ‘there were a growing number of indications that such an invasion is not only serious planned and prepared with the help of the IRA, but is imminent’. This warning evidently was on de Valera’s mind when David Gray visited him on 6 June: “He went to the map of Donegal Bay, where Lough Esk extends north of the border, 50 miles to the north-east, the head of Lough Swilly. ‘If I were the Germans’, he said, ‘I would land at these points and proclaim myself a liberator. If they should do that, what I could do, I do not know.’”

>>3174628
>Be Ireland
>Just recently became independent
>Still recovering from an independence war and a civil war
>Small population
>Poor
>Basically no army
>Still salty about Northern Ireland
I wonder why they didn't join.
Hell, both the UK and Germany had plans to invade Ireland.

>>3174628
Ireland was an Axis power

>>3175155

T. Chaim Shekelbergowitz

>>3175155
t. Nigel Goldstein

>>3175155
t. Ezekiel Basil Goldworth

>>3174628
>the great backstab in WW1

The Irish have been fighting British wars for centuries, you knob.

>>3174628
I favor the Allied side in WW2. However, nobody has any obligation to fight Anglo battles for them, least of all people who used to be dicked around by the Anglos.

>>3175155
t. Shaim Goldblatt

>>3174628
Ireland helping Britain fight a war would be like Vietnam coming to the aid of France.

File: eoin o duffy.jpg (72KB, 368x500px) Image search: [Google]

72KB, 368x500px

>>3174628

The Irish fucking despised the English due to the whole "700 years of atrocities and colonialism" thing

Hell, pic related tried to organize an Irish battalion of troops to help Hitler

>>3175155
t. Isaac Bongington Steinowitz

>>3174628
To assert Irish independence, it also appeared in the early years Germany would win so it would be better to be on their good side at the end. There were also fears of the horrific consequences of bombings and attacks on civilians.

>>3174628
Ireland had only come into existance as a dominion in the 20's, and they only became independent a year after the war broke out, Anti British sentiment's were collosal, her industry was pretty shite, she was the unique kind of pressure that could only've resulted from world war 2, if ireland had gone to war on the British side Valera would've almost certainly lost to some form of radicalism.

>>3175155
>objectively evil.

That's dumb

>>3174628

Because they live on an island right next to the then-global naval superpower. What good would it do, to join the Axis, and be immediately occupied by the British again?

>>3176958
>>3175649
>>3175521
>>3175517
Yes okay nice meme but what I mean is, why not fight them?

>hey ireland, this country is gassing jews
>hey ireland, this country is butchering people
>hey ireland, this country is stealing clay
>hey ireland, this country is fascist
>hey ireland, this country is acting like a dick
>"no sorry we don't care"

Were they just morally bankrupt?

File: spookbuster.jpg (46KB, 542x535px) Image search: [Google]

46KB, 542x535px

>>3175155
>Objectively evil

>>3174628
>Ignoring the ones who actually fought world war one

Fuck off

>>3176999
Why should Ireland give a fuck about Jews? They're not like Anglos who fly like Superman to Jewish rescue everytime someone threatens them.

>wake up to bombings
>Ask England what's going on
>Germany declares war on France or some shit like that
>Go back to bed

We dont really care about things that have sweet fuck all to do with us.

>>3176999
And what, does the ruined country with a couple millions civilians at most, with no navy, army or air force to speak of, not even yet in a position to get back on their feet declare war to the new superpower, towards which most people were sympathetic, allying with the people who practically tried to genocide them?
Do you lack any kind of Common sense? Jesus.

>>3176999
why would they help a country that did exactly that to them a few years earlier?

Because the British were cunts? The Germans were cunts too, but they weren't cunts to the Irish.

>>3175160
>>3176964
underrated

leave ireland alone english cunts

File: shutitdown.jpg (15KB, 203x249px) Image search: [Google]

15KB, 203x249px

>>3175517
>>3175521
>>3175649
>>3176809
>>3176906
>>3177215
Oy vey you anti-semitic bastids! 600 gorillion Jews weren't gassed to death in person by Adolf Hitler himself for this!