Thread: Ireland was neutral in WWII & at the time the name of the State was Éire. The war has always been known as ‘The Emergency’. As it broke out there were just 7,500 under-equipped soldiers. The key figure in the survival of the Irish state was Éamon De Valera (1882-1975) 
From the start neutrality was in favour of Britain. As Taoiseach, Dev was committed to keeping a country, recently independent of Brit & suffering from massive impoverishment, out of the conflict. He was leader of the republican Fianna Fáil Party & had been a 1916 revolutionary.
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Britain was allowed Lough Foyle as a naval base, overflights of Donegal, IRL reports of U-boat activity, IRL flight reporting, the IRL black-out, IRL Met data, Malin Hd raydar, plans for German invasion, release of Brit airmen & gaoling of Axis ones & allowing men to join Allies.
Additionally every post to Britain included food. Most of this was kept secret. Spies were widespread including John Betjeman & Elizabeth Bowen! A concern was the old IRA’s keeness to join the Axis. The Gardaí watched them vigilantly & prevented them doing so
Fianna Fáil’s Dev was aware that 50,000 Irish men left to join the Allies & that the goal was Irish sovereignty & full independence. He also knew of Hitler’s Fascism & had Jewish friends. Fine Gael’s Fascist roots may have also figured. He wanted to appear scrupulously neutral.
The Irish Catholic Church was pro-neutrality too & this counted in the de facto theocracy. Awareness of Irish sensitivities meant conscription in Northern Ireland was not introduced by Britain despite their ‘owning’ this part of Ireland. N Ireland was always ‘different’.
Despite helping Britain so much they still wanted more. In 1940 Brit offered Irish unification (UI) in return for using Irish territory. Dev saw this as unlikely to be delivered & countered a UI guaranteed by the US with only US troops allowed on the territory. Britain declined.
Churchill, grandson of a Vice Roy to Ireland, was antagonistic to Éire. He obsessed on the loss of Irish ports & ignored all the other help Ireland gave. Many Irish feared being invaded by Britain or Germany. America too sought to bully Ireland into the war (before she joined!)
FDR believed Ireland was pro-Axis despite there being no evidence of same. The Irish, it seemed, were only useful when they voted for him. He treated Irish political visitors with astonishing rudeness. Worries rose that Éire would be invaded by the US (there were plans)
Much has been written re Dev’s visit to the German Embassy on the death of Hitler. Here’s his own words - ‘Dr Hempel’s (German Ambassador) ..conduct was irreproachable (in high contrast to the Brit Amb). I was not going to add to his humiliation in the hour of defeat’.
By 1940 the Local Defence Force to guard against invasion was 180,000 strong. At this time invasion by Britain or by Germany was at its most likely. For a country that had recently experienced Civil War, the British Black & Tans & the British Economic War it was frightening.
Ireland set up Coast Watchers with Look Out Posts (LOP). Money was tight & arms purchase next to impossible for the Govt but they tried. The Air Corps did Coastal Patrol. Everything was about the goal of neutrality & the survival of the State from US, UK or German oppression.
In May 1940 two German bombers attacked my mum on a sunny day. The planes bombed the Shelbourne Co-Op in Campile & killed three family friends. My mother escaped with shrapnel damage as she slept outside in her pram. The bombing was accidental & the Germans paid £9000
There were occasions when German bombs were dropped in remote areas after that. Being Irish everyone had unlikely & bizarre theories why. On 29 Dec a German plane carried out aerial reconnaissance over the Irish Air Force base & flew on to Navan & over Dublin
1 Jan 1941 saw damageless bombs over Meath. 2 Jan over Rathdown Park wrecking 2 houses but no fatalities. At 3.15AM Dublin was targeted again. This time there was more damage & many buildings on the SCR impacted with multiple wounded.
Belfast suffered a devastating Nazi raid on the night of 15/16 April 1941. Some 200 planes firebombed the city. The damage was worse as the authorities believed it was out of reach of raids. Despite much official objection in the British area (NI) help was requested from Dev.
The fires, damage & deaths in the city were horrendous & fleets of Irish firefighters reached the border by 6.10AM. At first they found it hard to find their way in the Black-Out. However the red glow of death over Belfast soon guided them.
They set to work. In a favoured story one family was discovered in wreckage & asked who the firefighters were with their accents & strange uniforms. On being told, the response was ‘It must have been a mighty bomb to blow us from Belfast to Dublin!’
On 5 May 150 bombers started the Great Fire of Belfast. Yet again the firefighters of Dublin, Dún Laoighaire, Dundalk, Carlow & Drogheda raced to the rescue. Dev gave strict instructions that they were to rescue civilians & not strategic entities.
A feature of the Belfast bombings was Catholics & Protestants sleeping together in the cellars of the Clonard Monastery. However Dublin’s biggest bombing was to come in the N Strand area with 28 people killed. Here’s an overview:
Belfast, on hearing of the Dublin bombing, offered its fire services in response. The media, of course, used these horrible events as evidence of whatever perspective they had. The injured & bereaved did not indulge in the politics of blame but ‘got on with it’
The Irish Times noted most of the Dublin victims were from impoverished backgrounds which made things even harder for them. The raid, with its shocking & high casualties, in the Éire context, brought it home to nearly everyone the wisdom of Dev’s neutrality policy.
De Valera’s task was to manage the expectations & belligerence of three bigger powers; US, UK & Germany. His most lasting achievement was the survival of the Irish state. This despite its deep poverty, lack of power & the might of both the Axis & Allied powers.
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Oh & today the official name of the state, as recognised by the UN, is Ireland or Éire. It is not ‘the Republic of Ireland’, ‘the Free State’ or ‘Southern Ireland’. Those unable to speak Irish should stick to ‘Ireland’. Éire is pronounced ‘era’.
