Ireland joins WW2 and reunifies
- Thread starter Kevin Wanderlan
- Start date
Redshank Galloglass
Banned
If you were Irish in the Late 19th-Early 20th Century, England was basically Nazi Germany to you, unless you were from Ulster.
The British offer of acceptance "in principle" of the idea of a united Ireland (with the "details" to be worked out later) was just too vague to induce de Valera to have Eire enter the war at a time when popular sentiment was clearly pro-neutrality. To quote Tim Pat Coogan's De Valera: Long Fellow, Long Shadow:
"Like Maffey earlier, MacDonald had to read this to the nearly blind de Valera. But de Valera's political vision was sufficiently keen for him to spot the snag immediately. MacDonald reported that his reaction was that 'Eire was to enter the war immediately, but a United Ireland was to be a deferred payment'. As MacDonald struggled to convince him that Britain would not renege on her undertakings, de Valera's other fears emerged. The Germans would savagely bomb Ireland to make an example of her to other neutrals. Moreover, MacDonald reported:37 'One of the decisive influences on Mr. de Valera's mind now is his view that we are likely to lose the war.'
"The next day de Valera described the proposals to his Cabinet, which found them 'unacceptable'. He was empowered to tell MacDonald so in the company of Lemass and Aiken; it proved to be a hard man, soft man type of encounter. MacDonald said afterwards that whenever Lemass `began to develop at any length an argument that might have led to some compromise, one or other of his colleagues intervened with a fresh uncompromising statement'. Fear of Germany and the shadow of Irish history lay across the discussion, precluding any leaps of the imagination. The Irishmen were influenced by experiences in their own lifetimes such as the Curragh Mutiny and the fate of John Redmond, who had encouraged thousands of young Irishmen to their deaths for a Home Rule that never materialized. De Valera wanted to know: 'What guarantee... did the British have that the Northern Ireland Government would agree, even if they had accepted the plan in principle, to join a United Ireland in practice?'... https://books.google.com/books?id=5CFlCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT594&lpg=PT594
"Apart from de Valera's points about neutrality, the reference to the Constitution is highly significant. Despite his constant use of partition in negotiation — and his perceptive analysis of the real nature of the problem to Frank Gallagher — de Valera was not prepared to risk going further than his Constitution position to abolish the border. Articles 2 and 3, and the Special Position of the Roman Catholic Church, were the parameters of his fiefdom to extreme Republicanism and the Church. He subsequently gave further, differing, reasons for turning down an offer which would almost certainly have led to bombs falling on Dublin in the 1940s, but might have prevented them going off in Belfast and Dublin in the 1990s. He told Maffey that:. 'It had gone hard with him to... turn down the dream of his life. But that in present circumstances it was impossible. It would have meant civil war.' He later told his official biographers that it was because of the doctrine of 'equal holds'. In Bruree it had been the custom amongst his boyhood companions to keep 'equal holds' when engaged in a swap. 'Each was to have a firm grip on what he was to receive before he loosened his grip on that with which he was parting.'41 He did not feel that Chamberlain's offer gave him 'equal holds'. Chamberlain died the following November. De Valera sent his widow a telegram:42 'Mr. Chamberlain will always be remembered by the Irish people for his noble efforts in the cause of peace and friendship between the two nations.' Perhaps she was comforted by it." https://books.google.com/books?id=5CFlCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT596
"Like Maffey earlier, MacDonald had to read this to the nearly blind de Valera. But de Valera's political vision was sufficiently keen for him to spot the snag immediately. MacDonald reported that his reaction was that 'Eire was to enter the war immediately, but a United Ireland was to be a deferred payment'. As MacDonald struggled to convince him that Britain would not renege on her undertakings, de Valera's other fears emerged. The Germans would savagely bomb Ireland to make an example of her to other neutrals. Moreover, MacDonald reported:37 'One of the decisive influences on Mr. de Valera's mind now is his view that we are likely to lose the war.'
"The next day de Valera described the proposals to his Cabinet, which found them 'unacceptable'. He was empowered to tell MacDonald so in the company of Lemass and Aiken; it proved to be a hard man, soft man type of encounter. MacDonald said afterwards that whenever Lemass `began to develop at any length an argument that might have led to some compromise, one or other of his colleagues intervened with a fresh uncompromising statement'. Fear of Germany and the shadow of Irish history lay across the discussion, precluding any leaps of the imagination. The Irishmen were influenced by experiences in their own lifetimes such as the Curragh Mutiny and the fate of John Redmond, who had encouraged thousands of young Irishmen to their deaths for a Home Rule that never materialized. De Valera wanted to know: 'What guarantee... did the British have that the Northern Ireland Government would agree, even if they had accepted the plan in principle, to join a United Ireland in practice?'... https://books.google.com/books?id=5CFlCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT594&lpg=PT594
"Apart from de Valera's points about neutrality, the reference to the Constitution is highly significant. Despite his constant use of partition in negotiation — and his perceptive analysis of the real nature of the problem to Frank Gallagher — de Valera was not prepared to risk going further than his Constitution position to abolish the border. Articles 2 and 3, and the Special Position of the Roman Catholic Church, were the parameters of his fiefdom to extreme Republicanism and the Church. He subsequently gave further, differing, reasons for turning down an offer which would almost certainly have led to bombs falling on Dublin in the 1940s, but might have prevented them going off in Belfast and Dublin in the 1990s. He told Maffey that:. 'It had gone hard with him to... turn down the dream of his life. But that in present circumstances it was impossible. It would have meant civil war.' He later told his official biographers that it was because of the doctrine of 'equal holds'. In Bruree it had been the custom amongst his boyhood companions to keep 'equal holds' when engaged in a swap. 'Each was to have a firm grip on what he was to receive before he loosened his grip on that with which he was parting.'41 He did not feel that Chamberlain's offer gave him 'equal holds'. Chamberlain died the following November. De Valera sent his widow a telegram:42 'Mr. Chamberlain will always be remembered by the Irish people for his noble efforts in the cause of peace and friendship between the two nations.' Perhaps she was comforted by it." https://books.google.com/books?id=5CFlCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT596
Deleted member 2186
Well i think Ireland joining the United Kingdom is better than the British invading Ireland, a plan they did make in 1940: What if: British plan to invade Ireland in 1940
In 1940 Churchill made a plan to invade Ireland, 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.
In 1940 Churchill made a plan to invade Ireland, 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.
Again the reality is that the RN gave up the Treaty Ports in part because of the difficulty in defending them against modern threats, Cobh/Cork had jack shit in terms of air defences or air bases, all of which would have needed to be taken from areas outside of that which the UK held, moreover even by '39 the state of the remaining defences (pre WW1 remember) were severally poor (the Coastal Artillery was wildly inaccurate for example due to lack of spares), the base infrastructure within the harbour was gone or worn out. Moreover as much as I'm not a Dev person he was right, the idea of Ireland joining and "something" happening in the future was never going to fly for those that had dealt with the Treaty Talks of the 20's. As to the plans to invade, yes they did plan that, at the same time they also drew up extensive plans with the Irish Government/military to defend Ireland in the event of Sealion/Green...
As I've said I think it's far more likely the people that were involved to some degree in the Treaty Talks had "Jack shit" faith in any UK Cabinet delivering a sell out of NI under any circumstances, particularly if it was a "credit" situation that would come to pass after WW2
A British invasion of Ireland would have had serious political ramifications in the US, on whom Britain was then dependent for survival.
They would have got some territory out of it, Stormont never wanted South Armagh and would have probably agreed to handing it over as a gesture of good faith. Not too sure about the 1940 demographics of Newry, but maybe Newry as well as it was a significantly Nationalist major town. Probably some local border adjustments in Fermanagh and Tyrone. But nothing that would have been worth a major war in terms of tax revenues or new industry.
It's unlikely that anything less than the full counties would have been accepted.
Given both the political costs and the potential combat losses and damage there’s no way the Dail would accept anything but everything.
Very probably. And that was something Churchill wouldn't and couldn't deliver.
And that is the trouble, none of them are realistically deliverable without a massive programme of population exchanges. In 1940 Fermanagh is still 49% Unionist and Tyrone around 45% (with a small local majority in East Tyrone) and the other four all have large overall Unionist majorities. It is not until WW2 and the Cold War that the Unionist population really starts to concentrate in the East of the Province as the new industries develop, the railways close and the Linen industry, fishing and coastal shipping begins to decline. Not to mention farm consolidation and mechanisation. This is then accelerated by the Troubles. At the outbreak of WW2 however Unionism is much more evenly distributed than eighty years later.
Yep, and Dev and the Cabinet knew that, hence why I think the offer was never a sincere one, or at least one that had any thought put into it.
Anyone for a spot of Ethnic (well religious) Cleansing? It was pretty popular back then...
Sigh, Juts for the record I'd like to point out I'm personally not at all in favour of such measures.
They did and in Belfast of course (along with the attacks on shipping), but that's highly unlikely to change anything in the domestic viewpoint, and yeah navigation was an issue, there's still some of the markings in areas with giant White "EIRE" to this day for example