Posted on 09/28/2020 7:07:01 PM PDT by marshmallow
The Irish have long tended to look to Germany as an offset to Britain’s domination. And in WW II, Germany used Ireland to facilitate spying on Britain.
Former Irish President Mary McAleese should be more concerned with her eternal damnation.
Yes, and that got him out of being executed after the 1916 rebellion.
His mother was from Bruree in County Limerick, but his father (Juan Vivion de Valera) was apparently from the Basque region of Spain. His birth certificate lists his name as “George de Valero”.
If Ireland had fought in WWII they should have fought against England to get them out of the north; they did send some volunteers to help defend the Church against our ally Stalin in Spain a few years earlier.
Germany provided rifles for the failed Easter Rebellion which led to independence for most of Ireland; it was appreciated by the Irish and occurred decades before Hitler’s rise.
Quite so, even though the German guns were intercepted by the British before they could be distributed. Irish rebels in 1916 saw Britain’s difficulty in the form of WW I as Ireland’s opportunity. Without that, there wpuld have been no Easter Rebellion.
Yes, even though Ireland was in the war itself (as part of the British forces); it was an opportunity that might not present itself again.
Given what happened in Spain from 1936-1939 (particularly the mass murder of clergy), it is odd that some FReepers think Ireland should have aligned itself with Stalin. That bloodbath in Spain convinced many even in France as well that Stalin was a far greater threat than Hitler.
I’m sure it was dangerous and ugly but the alternative was unthinkable; no reason the Irish couldn’t have the same independence from England we sought. Our revolution was much more deadly and ugly; Ireland’s was a bit less successful.
Ah the gay Irish. Gerald Fitzpatrick and Patrick Fitzgerald
Yet, as you suggested, the price of an Irish alliance with Stalin would have been worse. And Ireland’s long era of picturesque stagnation after gaining independence was due in large part to the adoption of socialist ideas and policies pushed by the Left and made influential by their support for independence. If followed up on, British promises for de facto independence after WW I might have produced a better outcome in the long run.
Ireland’s “stagnation” was the result of England keeping the country from developing industry (deliberately, so they wouldn’t face a “war on two fronts”); note that when independence came the industrialized north was kept by England.
I thought the stagnation after independence WAS the outcome of British promises; it was an undeveloped country that only in recent decades has developed.
Most Irish in the Spanish Civil War fought on the Loyalist (leftist) side.
So did we, The Abraham Lincoln Brigade.
Oops, I meant the Abraham Lincoln Brigade fought FOR Stalin.
Not sure about that; its only Wikipedia, but:
“Encouraged by the Church hierarchy, Eoin O’Duffy, leader of the fascist NCP, started to recruit a brigade of Irish volunteers to fight in Spain in defence of the church. By late 1936 some 7,000 men had volunteered, of whom about 700 were selected, and in November 1936 these sailed to Spain, where they became the XV Bandera (battalion) of the Spanish Foreign Legion, or “Irish Brigade”...In all 320 Irish men served with the International Brigades, a quarter of whom were killed in action.”
As a Catholic culture there was little to attract Irishmen to the communist side; the well-publicized atrocities against the Church in 1936 attracted a lot of support among the Irish for the Nationalists.
No, they fought for the communists.
Other circumstances aside, Ireland’s economic development under independence was constrained for decades by a self-imposed regime of punitive high taxes and heavy regulation. The eventual reversal of those socialist policies triggered Ireland’s remarkable transformation in the 1980s into the “Celtic Tiger” with growth rates like South Korea and other Asian dynamos of that era.
Makes sense; I assume they were continuing British-style socialism without British-style revenues.
Yes, I corrected myself the next post.
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