Big thanks to John for bringing our attention to the documentary below, which is well worth a peek.
It is a rather unflattering look at Eamon de Valera, and alleges that the granddaddy of Irish nationalism actually refused Churchill's offer of a united Ireland in exchange for the use of the three Treaty Ports which Chamberlain - the master of appeasement - had relinquished in the face of a looming world war.
It is a rather unflattering look at Eamon de Valera, and alleges that the granddaddy of Irish nationalism actually refused Churchill's offer of a united Ireland in exchange for the use of the three Treaty Ports which Chamberlain - the master of appeasement - had relinquished in the face of a looming world war.
It seems that de Valera felt that taking in the Protestant/unionist population of the north would lead to a blurring of his vision of Ireland, which was an exclusively Catholic and Gaelic one. As an illustration of the inherent bankruptcy of Irish nationalism, it is hard to beat.
It also deals with his opportunism around the issue of the Anglo Irish Treaty in 1921, in which he stitched-up Collins and the other plenipotentiaries who agreed to partition. His rush to express his condolences to the German ambassador on the death of Hitler, when the rest of Europe was horrified by footage from the Nazi death camps, also gets an airing.
Get yourself a mug of coffee/cup of tea/can of beer/bottle of whiskey and have a look (preferably when you are not at work).
DeValera - Ireland's Hated Hero
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14 comments:
To suggest that Dev passed up an opportunity for reunification is well wide of the mark.
What Churchill offered was a vague promise of support for reunification after the war in return for an immediate handover of the ports. Dev knew that if he agreed British ships would return within a week, and German bombs would soon after be falling on the port towns and killing Irish civilians.
Even if Dev trusted Churchill he knew Churchill would be in no position to deliver on his promise, no more than Gladstone was on his and in fact less so, since reunification would have needed the Stormont Government to vote itself out of existence.
What is interesting though is Dev’s counter offer. Churchill (on the advice of G. B. Shaw apparently) came up with the ploy of suggesting Britain was fighting for some greater cause, rather than its own self interest. Dev suggested that if this was so it should be acceptable to Britain to allow the then neutral US to have the ports and to station forces in Ireland.
Churchill refused.
"Churchill (on the advice of G. B. Shaw apparently) came up with the ploy of suggesting Britain was fighting for some greater cause, rather than its own self interest."
In fairness, I think there was "some greater cause" as it turned out - a Europe free of Nazism. I doubt very much that if the Nazis had succeeded in invading Britain, they would have stopped at Holyhead.
As Britain presumably wanted the ports to provide bases for its navy to protect merchant convoys in any coming U-Boat war, I honestly can't see what attraction de Valera's alternative offer might have had.
Thanks to John & GM for bringing this to my attention. Well worth a view.
"His rush to express his condolences to the German ambassador on the death of Hitler, when the rest of Europe was horrified by footage from the Nazi death camps, also gets an airing." - So shockingly inappropriate ... and presumably done in our name.
You can be sure it was, Ella. Did any other political leaders express their condolences on Hitler's demise, I wonder?
@anna
"His rush to express his condolences to the German ambassador on the death of Hitler, when the rest of Europe was horrified by footage from the Nazi death camps, also gets an airing." - So shockingly inappropriate
Yes it would be, if it were true, but in the age of instant SkyNews we forgot that things didn't happen as quickly then as they do now. The Churchill war room museum in London says the first footage did not appear until after VE day, one month after. Dev's condolences.
@GM
When Dev made his offer of the ports to the US the war was smaller than it eventually became. The US urged the combatants to respect neutrality and hoped to keep it confined as much as possible. US ports and troops stationed there could have protected neutral shipping and could have helped keep humanitarian supplies flowing.
I always liked devs rebuttle to churchill after he basically called us a bunch of wussy fence sitters and said he had considered coming and "laying a heavy hand on Ireland " as he did with icleand ,if only for the snappiness of the comeback and the tingle of patriotism that tries to force its way up my bent contorted spine(bent and brken from years of putting up with gobshites and shite weather)
ahem ahem ;"...could he not find in his heart the generosity to acknowledge that there is a small nation that stood alone, not for one year or two, but for several hundred years against aggression...a small nation that could never be got to accept defeat and has never surrendered her soul"
although we did eventually surrender our souls while shouting into our hands free kits buying up apartment blocks in bulgaria while trying to hold a mocchalatino with one free paw and a gaelgoiri scoil brat with the other .
Pathe newsreel footage, 26th April, 1945:
http://www.archive.org/details/1945-04-26_Nazi_Murder_Mills
Hitler's death: 30th April, 1945.
Other world leaders did not need newsreel footage to be aware of Hitler's genocide. I am not aware that any other expressed condolences on Hitler's death.
Would you mind signing your comments, as a matter of courtesy?
Evidence of the camps was gathered at the point of liberation, before Dev's condolences but it was not shown publically until after VE day.
I doubt whether Dev was briefed on anything by the Allies.
I'm not suggesting for a second he was right but he certainly did not give his condolences having the night before seen the footage of the camps at his local picture house.
@ Anon 14:17 A "mocchalatino". Wassat? Not guilty ;-)
@ Anon 16:49. A strange omission by the Allies then. If that were the case, there were always newspapers and radio, even for someone such as Dev, determined as he was to shut out modernity and the outside world. A briefing from the Allies was hardly necessary.
De Valera's action was shameful.
It is extraordinary how Catholic Nationalist Ireland always denies concrete evidence if it does not fit with the myths and legends on which they based their Catholic State for a Catholic People.
The insularity of the misnamed 'Republic' (even post-Tiger) when one might have assumed they would lift their heads out of the bog of delusion and investigate the political, social and religious evolution in the Western Hemisphere which has taken place since WWII (which never got Dev's 'Free' State). Much less did any vestige of the Enlightenment.
10 years in this uninformed state where people are not even CURIOUS about what happens elsewhere unless it has to do with sport or celebrity culture, leads me to believe they will continue burying their heads in deluded myths and legends of their own fantasy for at least another 100 years. The 'romance' (however repugnant) of men of violence DOES it seems, arouse a certain percentage from apathetic obedience to what was, for the best part of its existence, a class-ridden, inhumane and oppressive state. McGuinness for President!! People who incarcerated the most vulnerable children of the poor in abusive, paedophile-ruled slave labour camps (under Dev and his successors) have certainly EARNED such a President.
Kathleen - A Displaced Northerner.
UP DEV UP KERRY UP FIANNA FAIL UP THE BISHOPS ARSE----BH god help oirland
@ Kathleen. I think you've summed it up...
@ BH. Thought you'd left us, BH. Yes... our little land needs all the help it can get...
Wake up Irish people- every heard of psychiatry? Dev was a typical Irish leader with obsessive compulsive disorder obsessed with the purity of our nation and culture and morals.
The Bertie guy?- picture someone with undiagnosed mania. No lithium to stabilise him as he drove the olympic committee out to a bog in Abbots town to show them where the Irish Olympics in 2012 were to be held. Imagine their suprise to see muck and puddles
All you have to do in this country to disguise your mental illness is say "Brits out" and all the plebs will overlook your faults
Forgot to mention that not only Dev signed the condolences for Hitler but our then president
Douglas Hyde's last presidential acts was a visit to the German ambassador Eduard Hempel on 3 May 1945 to offer his condolences on the death of Adolf Hitler. The visit remained a secret until 2005.
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