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That Neutral Island: A History of Ireland during the Second World War
Of the countries that remained neutral during the Second World War, none was more controversial than Ireland, with accusations of betrayal and hypocrisy poisoning the media. Whereas previous histories of Ireland in the war years have focused on high politics, That Neutral Island brings to life the atmosphere of a country forced to live under rationing, heavy censorship and the threat of invasion. It unearths the motivations of those thousands who left Ireland to fight in the British forces and shows how ordinary people tried to make sense of the Nazi threat through the lens of antagonism towards Britain.
499 pages, Paperback
First published February 7, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
April 2, 2018
As an event, the Second World War was impossible to escape. Though many countries sought to distance themselves from the fighting, nearly all were affected to one degree or another by the global conflagration. One of those was Eire, the nation that had only recently wrested itself from the British empire but now found itself facing the conflict by its proximity to Great Britain. Though the politics and the policies of Ireland during the war have been the subject of numerous books, Clair Wills has written something different, a “cultural history” which examines the impact of the “Emergency” (the name the Irish government gave to the situation) upon Irish life.
Wills begins by setting the scene with a portrait of Ireland in the 1930s. With it, she underscores just how rural and primitive much of Ireland was, and the growing contrast between the “traditional” Ireland of poor farms and the “modern” Ireland of towns and cities. It was in this context that Ireland was grappling with modernity on its own terms, with much of the resistance dictated by the influence of the Catholic church and attitudes of its adherents. Ireland was also only just beginning to emerge from the shadow of British rule, developing its own identity as a nation and dealing with such legacies as the remnants of the Irish Republican Army.
All of this underscores just how unprepared Ireland was to deal with the emerging war on the European continent. Wills reminds readers that Ireland’s stance was no different from that of other small European countries such as the Netherlands, Belgium, and Denmark, none of whom had the resources (let alone the desire) to be drawn into a large-scale conflict. Yet unlike these other countries, Ireland enjoyed the luxury of geography afforded them as an island nation and the indirect protection of British arms. Such protection could not shield them completely from the war, however. Bodies of sailors from sunken ships washed up along the southern coast, the result of fighting in the Atlantic which curtailed Ireland’s trade with the outside world and forced the rationing of numerous commodities. Propaganda filled the airwaves, as both sides sought to nudge Ireland to their side, counteracting the government’s strenuous effort for “balance” that belied any moral judgment of the conflict.
Throughout this account, Wills uses the lives and stories of writers to shine a light on how individuals reacted to the conflict. What emerges is a country in the conflict but not of it, a haven for many people (including soldiers who would head south from wartime Northern Ireland for relaxation without the fear of the nightly blitz) and a land encased in a cocoon of denial to others. She also looks at the motivations of the thousands of Irishmen and Irishwomen who crossed over to join the conflict, and the concerns of the thousands who were caught up in it against their will. While somewhat repetitive in the later chapters, Wills describes all of this with great insight into the effects of the Emergency upon both the Irish people and their efforts to define themselves as a new nation in the world, making it a book well worth reading.
Wills begins by setting the scene with a portrait of Ireland in the 1930s. With it, she underscores just how rural and primitive much of Ireland was, and the growing contrast between the “traditional” Ireland of poor farms and the “modern” Ireland of towns and cities. It was in this context that Ireland was grappling with modernity on its own terms, with much of the resistance dictated by the influence of the Catholic church and attitudes of its adherents. Ireland was also only just beginning to emerge from the shadow of British rule, developing its own identity as a nation and dealing with such legacies as the remnants of the Irish Republican Army.
All of this underscores just how unprepared Ireland was to deal with the emerging war on the European continent. Wills reminds readers that Ireland’s stance was no different from that of other small European countries such as the Netherlands, Belgium, and Denmark, none of whom had the resources (let alone the desire) to be drawn into a large-scale conflict. Yet unlike these other countries, Ireland enjoyed the luxury of geography afforded them as an island nation and the indirect protection of British arms. Such protection could not shield them completely from the war, however. Bodies of sailors from sunken ships washed up along the southern coast, the result of fighting in the Atlantic which curtailed Ireland’s trade with the outside world and forced the rationing of numerous commodities. Propaganda filled the airwaves, as both sides sought to nudge Ireland to their side, counteracting the government’s strenuous effort for “balance” that belied any moral judgment of the conflict.
Throughout this account, Wills uses the lives and stories of writers to shine a light on how individuals reacted to the conflict. What emerges is a country in the conflict but not of it, a haven for many people (including soldiers who would head south from wartime Northern Ireland for relaxation without the fear of the nightly blitz) and a land encased in a cocoon of denial to others. She also looks at the motivations of the thousands of Irishmen and Irishwomen who crossed over to join the conflict, and the concerns of the thousands who were caught up in it against their will. While somewhat repetitive in the later chapters, Wills describes all of this with great insight into the effects of the Emergency upon both the Irish people and their efforts to define themselves as a new nation in the world, making it a book well worth reading.
October 13, 2022
Very well written on a difficult subject Clair Wills has explored and sustained central themes without losing sight of the main topic thread of neutrality and it s consequences
Overall provides a very lucid summary of war time Ireland and how this period set the course for modern Ireland and linked back to the formation of the Republic
The book also critiques Ireland s failure to take a moral stand of the Nazi war crimes when these became obvious at the end of the war Part of the responsibility for this rests with Eamon de Valera s moral turpitude in putting petty protocols (giving condolences to the German embassy on Hitler s death) before calling out the Germans’ gross inhumanity to man in the Holocaust
Neutrality rather than being a highly principled stand against war seems to have become a convenient way to hide from the dangers of war and invasion
Overall provides a very lucid summary of war time Ireland and how this period set the course for modern Ireland and linked back to the formation of the Republic
The book also critiques Ireland s failure to take a moral stand of the Nazi war crimes when these became obvious at the end of the war Part of the responsibility for this rests with Eamon de Valera s moral turpitude in putting petty protocols (giving condolences to the German embassy on Hitler s death) before calling out the Germans’ gross inhumanity to man in the Holocaust
Neutrality rather than being a highly principled stand against war seems to have become a convenient way to hide from the dangers of war and invasion
November 20, 2020
Chapter 9 on The Vanishing Generation of the West of Ireland during World War 2 was really sad. The Irish were damned by the World over staying neutral in the war and damned at home by the impact of the shortages on the poor of the country.
The book focused a bit too much on the Arts during the War and interpretation of plays and poems written at that time. I would have given 5 stars otherwise.
The book focused a bit too much on the Arts during the War and interpretation of plays and poems written at that time. I would have given 5 stars otherwise.
February 18, 2021
I'm not sure how this book got on my reading list. I was very interested in the subject and it was something that I hadn't really thought about, but the book was like a textbook and I found myself skimming more than I was reading. I was about 75 pages in and realized I was only enjoying small portions. My time is to valuable to force myself to read something I'm not enjoying.
December 19, 2023
(I must apologise that due to computer problems I have had to repeatedly post this review to save the changes I was making - this is now the final version)
An excellent book on a period that aroused fierce, partisan controversy at the time and since which Ms. Wills tackles with meticulous and balanced scholarship and it is probably the best examination of this period available. But I do have problems with the book.
Although I am 100% behind the decision by de Valera to not join the stampede of the other Dominion nations' (Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa) to throw themselves behind the preservation of Britain's great power status and rather enjoy reading of Churchill's sclerotic and apoplectic annoyance that anyone under the King-Emperor could dare to see their countries needs as independent, or even worse, more important to that of England (back then no one pretended that the Celtic fringes needed to be acknowledged by using the rubric UK - England - was sufficient). The posturing bullying of America's ambassador to Ireland once the USA had belatedly joijned the war are both repellant and typical and as deserving of even more derision then Churchill's actions.
While WWII did become an existential crisis, and battle but at the beginning it was all about the maintenance of Britain and her empire (which is why all those places in Africa as well as India were never given a choice about fighting; only the 'white' Dominions had that choice and as far to many Irish could remember the English had on way to many occasions made clear that they found little to distinguish between the lumpen Irish and Africans) what is less easy to accept is the way that Ireland turned inwards and refused to accept to see the wood for the trees when looking at the conflict in Europe. It is shocking if not down right disturbing - at the time when a great Catholic country like Poland was being systematically butchered by the Nazis that Christian Brothers in Ireland were teaching young Irish boys and girls that no catholic country had ever suffered as Ireland had under the British (it would be decades before any Irish school mentioned the lavish subsidies paid to the Catholic hierarchy in Ireland to keep its members quiescent during the long years of legal disabilities and disfranchisement).
Ireland's obtuse blindness to the world around it was enabled in large part by the Catholic hierarchy who, like the hierarchies of Catholic Church in most continental Europe, played an ignoble, shameful and compromised role during the years of greatest challenge (I am talking of the official church - I am perfectly aware of how many ordinary catholic clergy and lay men and women did heroically brave things - but they did them despite not because of their bishops). This is an area Ms. Wills totally avoids and in particular she ignores the deep seated strain of antisemitism in the Irish catholic church and its members.
Of course Ireland had few Irish Jews, and its diplomatic representatives in places like Germany did everything to prevent any refugee Jews reaching Ireland, but there is absolutely no reason to believe that if had that the Irish peoples attitude would have been better than that of the Netherlands or France. Why do I say this? Let me introduce you to my bete noir Oliver Flannigan who said at various times:
"Rout the Jews out of this country... where the bees are there is honey, and where the Jews are there is money"
"How is it that we do not see any of these Acts (various legislation to deal with IRA activity during WWII) directed against the Jews, who crucified Our Saviour nineteen hundred years ago, and who are crucifying us every day in the week?"
Flannagan was idiot, but he was also a Minister of Defense, what is shocking is not what he said but that no one at the time or up to his death in 1987 saw these remarks as something to be ashamed of or condemned. He was not unique or singular and suggests that if Ireland had come under Nazi control the response would not have resembled that of the Danes.
On the other great controversy, de Valera's visit of condolence to the German ambassador in full tail coat and top hat, I find Ms. Wills annoyingly opaque in her coverage. I am deeply ambivalent about de Valera in many ways but have no doubt that he was no closet Nazi or Fascist and would almost certainly have been one of the first people to be shot if the Germans had invaded, he had morals and principals a plenty, even if some of them were a bit odd. The important thing is to remember that de Valera paid exactly the same respects in the same tailcoat and top hat when president Roosevelt did shortly before. de Valera was a bloody minded man of principal who was going to do the right thing even if he was hated for it. Much as dislike him I can't help respecting him.
Overall an excellent book on the political aspects of the neutrality question but I do not think it manages to get to grip with the way neutrality allowed so many Irish people not to see what was going on outside their own immediate circumstances.
An excellent book on a period that aroused fierce, partisan controversy at the time and since which Ms. Wills tackles with meticulous and balanced scholarship and it is probably the best examination of this period available. But I do have problems with the book.
Although I am 100% behind the decision by de Valera to not join the stampede of the other Dominion nations' (Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa) to throw themselves behind the preservation of Britain's great power status and rather enjoy reading of Churchill's sclerotic and apoplectic annoyance that anyone under the King-Emperor could dare to see their countries needs as independent, or even worse, more important to that of England (back then no one pretended that the Celtic fringes needed to be acknowledged by using the rubric UK - England - was sufficient). The posturing bullying of America's ambassador to Ireland once the USA had belatedly joijned the war are both repellant and typical and as deserving of even more derision then Churchill's actions.
While WWII did become an existential crisis, and battle but at the beginning it was all about the maintenance of Britain and her empire (which is why all those places in Africa as well as India were never given a choice about fighting; only the 'white' Dominions had that choice and as far to many Irish could remember the English had on way to many occasions made clear that they found little to distinguish between the lumpen Irish and Africans) what is less easy to accept is the way that Ireland turned inwards and refused to accept to see the wood for the trees when looking at the conflict in Europe. It is shocking if not down right disturbing - at the time when a great Catholic country like Poland was being systematically butchered by the Nazis that Christian Brothers in Ireland were teaching young Irish boys and girls that no catholic country had ever suffered as Ireland had under the British (it would be decades before any Irish school mentioned the lavish subsidies paid to the Catholic hierarchy in Ireland to keep its members quiescent during the long years of legal disabilities and disfranchisement).
Ireland's obtuse blindness to the world around it was enabled in large part by the Catholic hierarchy who, like the hierarchies of Catholic Church in most continental Europe, played an ignoble, shameful and compromised role during the years of greatest challenge (I am talking of the official church - I am perfectly aware of how many ordinary catholic clergy and lay men and women did heroically brave things - but they did them despite not because of their bishops). This is an area Ms. Wills totally avoids and in particular she ignores the deep seated strain of antisemitism in the Irish catholic church and its members.
Of course Ireland had few Irish Jews, and its diplomatic representatives in places like Germany did everything to prevent any refugee Jews reaching Ireland, but there is absolutely no reason to believe that if had that the Irish peoples attitude would have been better than that of the Netherlands or France. Why do I say this? Let me introduce you to my bete noir Oliver Flannigan who said at various times:
"Rout the Jews out of this country... where the bees are there is honey, and where the Jews are there is money"
"How is it that we do not see any of these Acts (various legislation to deal with IRA activity during WWII) directed against the Jews, who crucified Our Saviour nineteen hundred years ago, and who are crucifying us every day in the week?"
Flannagan was idiot, but he was also a Minister of Defense, what is shocking is not what he said but that no one at the time or up to his death in 1987 saw these remarks as something to be ashamed of or condemned. He was not unique or singular and suggests that if Ireland had come under Nazi control the response would not have resembled that of the Danes.
On the other great controversy, de Valera's visit of condolence to the German ambassador in full tail coat and top hat, I find Ms. Wills annoyingly opaque in her coverage. I am deeply ambivalent about de Valera in many ways but have no doubt that he was no closet Nazi or Fascist and would almost certainly have been one of the first people to be shot if the Germans had invaded, he had morals and principals a plenty, even if some of them were a bit odd. The important thing is to remember that de Valera paid exactly the same respects in the same tailcoat and top hat when president Roosevelt did shortly before. de Valera was a bloody minded man of principal who was going to do the right thing even if he was hated for it. Much as dislike him I can't help respecting him.
Overall an excellent book on the political aspects of the neutrality question but I do not think it manages to get to grip with the way neutrality allowed so many Irish people not to see what was going on outside their own immediate circumstances.
March 23, 2016
Yawn.
September 14, 2016
Quite a detailed and atmospheric account of one of the neutrals in WWII and the various pulls and pushes it faced..
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews