Old myths about Ireland in the Emergency.

My recent blog on the D-Day commemoration brought an “observation” which was too abusive to allow onto the site.
It was a difficult logic to follow, but the “writer” believed that somehow  I was somehow heartbroken that the Third Reich had been defeated.

No, me neither.

This “missive” also repeated the hoary myths about Irish Free State collaboration with the Nazis during what is called here “the Emergency.”

The allegation of U-Boat re-fuelling was stated by, a probably drunk, Winston Churchill in the House of Commons after VE Day.
.
What Churchill  must have known was that the Royal Air force had given De Valera a flypast in his honour.
In the battle for the Atlantic the allies had a key advantage-the Donegal Corridor.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Voices-Donegal-Corridor-Joe-OLoughlin/dp/1845885260

On at least one occasion a German plane following a British flying boat into the corridor was shot at by Irish ground forces. The German plane turned back.

German pilots who parachuted into Ireland were interned in the Curragh for the duration of the war.
Allied pilots were also interned, but immediately given “working leave” in the town.
This was a nod and a wink to them absenting themselves back over the Border and back to their unit.
Some RAF pilots decided to stay in Ireland, it was safer.
Many, the majority, decided to “escape” and return to their units in England.

The IRA was in contact with the Abwehr (German military intelligence) and facilitated German agents in Ireland.
It was partly because of this activity the De Valera smashed the IRA bringing over Pierrepoint the English hangman to execute the IRA chief of staff Charlie Kerrins.

 Churchill was aware of all of this when he staggered to his feet at the dispatch box in the commons in May 1945.

Churchill would also have been aware that, during the hunt for the Bismarck, that Royal Navy ships had docked in Cork harbour and had re-fuelled there.
This courtesy was not afforded to the Kriegsmarine.
Churchill was also aware that the fate of the success of D-Day was based on the timing and that meant weather reports.
Probably the most momentous weather forecast in history came out of Blacksod Bay in County Mayo.
Had the allies not been equipped with that information then the armada would have sailed on June 20th and would have been destroyed by the worst English Channel storm in living memory.
The weather report from the West of Ireland forecast an approaching “hole” in the Atlantic storm.
This was crucial information that made the Allied commanders decide, initially, on the 5th of June, although they delayed that date by 24hrs.
Several times a day reports were passed across Dublin from the Irish Met office to the British Embassy.
So far from being hostile to the Allies De Valera’s administration was secretly on the side of the allies.
His signing of the condolence book for Hitler was De Valera being diplomatically correct.
The facts on the ground stated quite clearly that the Irish Free State were important allies of the British in their hour of need.

No U-Boats were fuelled in Irish ports, but British ships were.

I do realise that this invalidates a line of the “Famine song”.
Ah well.

I suppose we should blame the schools…………………….