This sample essay on war. The Irish during the times of 1941 to 1945 faced many difficult decisions and had to make sure any actions they took bettered their country. With World War II being the largest war the world had ever seen, involvement at any level meant a lot to a country and would shape relations with other countries for a long time to come. Ireland was torn between its hatred of Britain and its conscience when the time came to pick sides. On one hand, the Irish hated Britain to a great extent; on the other, they saw the awful wrongs of the Nazi Regime, but could not, in good conscience, side with them. In the end, though, Ireland itself chose to remain neutral, but allowed both the United States and Britain to use their ports and airstrips when needed. During this vital period in world history Ireland played its own role and shaped its future in many respects. This reviewer has read over several works regarding the role the Irish played during World War II and will be giving a general overview and closer look into two of these works.
This sample essay on war. The Irish during the times of 1941 to 1945 faced many difficult decisions and had to make sure any actions they took bettered their country. With World War II being the largest war the world had ever seen, involvement at any level meant a lot to a country and would shape relations with other countries for a long time to come. Ireland was torn between its hatred of Britain and its conscience when the time came to pick sides. On one hand, the Irish hated Britain to a great extent; on the other, they saw the awful wrongs of the Nazi Regime, but could not, in good conscience, side with them. In the end, though, Ireland itself chose to remain neutral, but allowed both the United States and Britain to use their ports and airstrips when needed. During this vital period in world history Ireland played its own role and shaped its future in many respects. This reviewer has read over several works regarding the role the Irish played during World War II and will be giving a general overview and closer look into two of these works. These works cover the mild Irish involvement in the war, governmental aspects of Ireland, and how much the Irish people really knew about the war and what they thought of it.
Neutrality and the volunteers: Irish and British government policy towards the Irish volunteers by Cormac Kavanagh deals with the young Irish state policies in government and the problems the Irish knew they would have by declaring themselves neutral during World War II. The Irish leader at the time, Eamon de Valera, stated that the Irish had to look out for their best interests and that being a small state meant that they were open to more pressure. The author believes that it was going to be difficult for the Irish to implement a policy of neutrality in any European policy that involves the British. There also arose a problem from the IRA, which wanted to take advantage of the British at a vulnerable time he mentions. Domestically though the Irish people approved of the neutrality and gave little problem to the Irish government. Kavanagh goes onto mention though that James Dillon, the deputy leader of Fine Gael, was for the allied forces and did not care what the Irish public opinion was; this eventually cost him his position. The author then goes on to argue that those that were opposed to neutrality, although they did not express it in any real terms, showed their opposition by joining the British armed forces. Kavanagh believes that this joining of Irish to British forces in fact helped to make the Ireland somewhat less neutral. The author mentions that many Irish still thought of the British forces as “their army” or “their navy” and that that reason could have contributed to their joining the war. He says how many volunteers kept their involvement in the war a secret as well. Kavanagh concludes by stating that the Irish remained neutral partly because of their goal to be more independent of Britain. He believes that Ireland should admit their involvement in the war as a ‘shared experience’ with Britain and stop having a one-dimensional national identity. The author is somewhat convincing in his argument, backing up his beliefs with strong points and good historical facts about Irish involvement or lack of. A decently written work that got across its ideas well in a well flowing manner.
The next work was written by Donal O Drisceoil and is titled Censorship as propaganda: the neutralization of Irish public opinion during the Second World War. The focus of his article is to discuss how the Irish government set out to neutralize Irish public opinion during the war and how the neutrality stance affected Ireland as a country. He mentions how the government portrayed the war to its people and how they promoted the neutrality stance. Drisceoil believes that Ireland was militarily not ready for a war, had no imperialist interests in danger, and that neutrality was least divisive policy in domestic political context, are the reasons that they choose neutrality during the war. He goes along with Kavanagh in his belief that some people thought of the war as a chance to take advantage of England and Ireland should see it as an opportunity. The author mentions an interesting possible other reason though why the Irish remained neutral. He states that the Irish government might have feared an IRA revolt, backed by Germany, if they joined the war on the British side, therefore causing a second civil war to occur in Ireland. Neutrality was an independent action of Britain Drisceoil believes. He goes on to say how the Irish were extremely partial towards the Allies though and there was an extensive co-operation with Allied forces during the war. There was a censorship effort by the Irish government though to cover up this co-operation from its people the author states. Drisceoil contends that the Irish had an emotional dimension towards the war that other neutral countries did not, such as Sweden. The rest of his work discusses the efforts the Irish government took to limit its people’s knowledge of the war and Irish involvement in the war. They had to limit not only their own newspapers but also publications from other countries that the Irish people had access to. Drisceoil concludes that this censorship was necessary because it served as an act of survival for Ireland. Had people known about what was really going on there might have been a much greater urge or up rising of people wanting Irish involvement in the war and or Irish people providing their services to another country. The author ultimately comes back to the fact that Ireland was not prepared for a war and that the strong positive portrayal of neutrality kept the Irish self-perception a good thing and kept them believing neutrality was a superior choice. The author covered the subject well and also had good historical data backing up his points. His work was well written and set up in a good manner for reading.
Other good works on the Irish neutrality during World War II and the issues that went along with that position are Irish neutrality in historical perspective by John A. Murphy, Irish heroes of the Second World War by Richard Doherty, Three narratives of neutrality: historians and Ireland’s war by Geoffrey Roberts, and Politics in wartime: governing, neutrality and elections by Brian Girvin. Murphy’s work covers all the different ways neutrality as been expressed over time by various European states, Doherty’s work tells the stories of the Irish people who did get involved in war, Roberts work tells the tale of Irish neutrality and how it was either supported or not by the Irish people, and Girvin follows along those same lines but discusses more about the Irish government and elections in detail.
The majority of first hand accounts, or primary sources, that come from the times of 1941 to 1945 and are from the Irish, come from those who chose to be involved in the war. Names like John Jermyn from Cork, Brother Columbanus Deegan from Dublin, Stephen Mulcahy from Cork, and Eamon O’Toole from Antrim are just some of the accounts in writing that are given from people involved in the war on the Irish side. Some discuss why they joined the war for financial reasons and others like Jermyn because of family tradition. There are also several accounts of Eamon De Valera and his speeches and such on Irish neutrality.
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