WWII Irish 'deserters' to finally get pardons

70 years way too late.

Fact is, the real deserters were the Irish government, and their refusal to battle great evil.

So they were expected to fight for the people that basically treated them as a colony of inferior 3rd class Catholics for centuries and only gained their independence from after they started a revolution which only ended 18 years before WWII? That's like saying an Aboriginal fresh out of residential school should fight for Canada even after we took him out of a fine family and proceeded beat and rape him because of a perceived inferiority.

Whatever reason, it was their choice and they shouldn't have been treated as deserters for following their conscience. A lot of those that fought with the British Army had fought in the uprising for Irish Statehood so their loyalty to Ireland should never have been questioned.

But given your left leaning, the question becomes, how do you feel about the International Brigade and should they have been considered communist traitors by a large portion of their Countrymen for fighting Facism?


The sad part is only 50 out of 500 from the Canadian Battalion returned.

It was a different time and a lot of people in both Canada, the US and Ireland and other countries felt Hitler and the Japanese Empire were more of a threat than the stigma of being called deserters or traitors.

Darn shame for that to happen. If someone got applause for going to Spain to fight for Stalinism then the guys from Ireland who went to fight Hitler should have received the same and no less.

“When the Bishops blessed the Blueshirts in Dun Laoghaire, As they sailed beneath the swastika to Spain"

So they were expected to fight for the people that basically treated them as a colony of inferior 3rd class Catholics for centuries and only gained their independence from after they started a revolution which only ended 18 years before WWII? That's like saying an Aboriginal fresh out of residential school should fight for Canada even after we took him out of a fine family and proceeded beat and rape him because of a perceived inferiority.
If I were from Ireland I would find this a national embarrassment that they treated these soldiers this way, yes this is 70 years too late.

How many times I see things and say thanks to all of those who 70 years ago saved the world.

I just find it very interesting that any western nation would want to punish men who wanted to fight against Hitler.

Most western nations had some form of assistance to those soldiers, Ireland however passed what what called a "starvation law" to punish these men and their families. I must say I am having a hard time understanding their motivation.

I am glad they are moving away from whatever their reasoning was at the time.

Sorry, but that's over the top. There was a broad coalition supporting the democratically elected government and resisting Hitler's puppet Franco, Stalinists were just one group of many.

So they were expected to fight for the people that basically treated them as a colony of inferior 3rd class Catholics for centuries and only gained their independence from after they started a revolution which only ended 18 years before WWII? That's like saying an Aboriginal fresh out of residential school should fight for Canada even after we took him out of a fine family and proceeded beat and rape him because of a perceived inferiority.
Gee, I had no idea WW2 was only about England. You sound like the Quebec objectors to the draft in WW2. "WHy should we help fight England's war?"

Hmmm I dunno, cuz maybe it's NOT just Germany vs England??

Sorry, but that's over the top. There was a broad coalition supporting the democratically elected government and resisting Hitler's puppet Franco, Stalinists were just one group of many.


And the best part is that the people who fought under his banner wiped out all those pesky Spanish anarchists. After all who wants anarchists running around when you can have communists doing it.

So they were expected to fight for the people that basically treated them as a colony of inferior 3rd class Catholics for centuries and only gained their independence from after they started a revolution which only ended 18 years before WWII? That's like saying an Aboriginal fresh out of residential school should fight for Canada even after we took him out of a fine family and proceeded beat and rape him because of a perceived inferiority.
Gee, I had no idea WW2 was only about England. You sound like the Quebec objectors to the draft in WW2. "WHy should we help fight England's war?"

Hmmm I dunno, cuz maybe it's NOT just Germany vs England??
And yet for the Irish they would have had to fight beside the country which just spent centuries treating them as being worth less than shit. Not exactly easy to fight a war when you hate one of your potential allies more than you hate the enemy.

that describes the Western allies view of Russia......many wanted to let Hitler and Stalin fight to the death, and saw Nazis as the lesser of two evils.

That's the best summary comment in this topic, so far.

The other thing that worked against Britain in recruiting Irish to their cause in WW2 was the fact that it was fresh in the collective Irish memory that Irish soldiers were poorly treated, abused, and used in wasting actions by the British in WW1.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ireland_and_World_War_I

The British military leadership on the ground in WW1 was criminally malfeasant and the vast majority of British officers of that period treated their non-British allies as cannon fodder. That was something that was glaringly apparent to President Wilson and General Pershing who both steadfastly refused to put US troops under British command...thus saving tens of thousands of American boys from pointless bayonet charges against German machine guns.

The sick f*cks in the British leadership pointlessly sent men to their deaths even on the morning of 11 Nov 1918 instead of just holding in place until the Armistice took effect.

Things like that no doubt impacted the Irish decision to let the Brits go it alone instead of letting the Brits kill their boys in more pointless bloodshed.

As to the men who deserted the Irish military? While it's really great that Ireland has officially forgiven them the fact remains that these were men who had sworn an oath to do their duty to Ireland and they betrayed that oath in order to serve a country that not even a generation before was their occupier.

The forgiveness of their treason required first the passing of the generations who had been most directly impacted by the acts of the British prior to 1937.

While I know what I posted here is probably unpopular with the folks who have British sympathies bear in mind that on my mother's side I come from a family that 100 years ago right now was mourning the recent loss of men, women, and children who died in the road building campaign in 1912-1913 Sligo...and atrocities like that still stung during WW2.

It also bears repeating that I have nothing but warm feelings for the British people of today. The past is the past.

as were all troops from the Dominions, regardless of their religion or ethnicity. This 'disdain' for colonial militias and soldiers, is what earned the Canadians their reputations as shock troops. Vimy Ridge is prime example of this.