Of course not. I'm saying there are different levels of occupation. This is not to defend the British record in Ireland - something I'll never do - but to point out that a Nazi occupation of Ireland would not have seen the Reichstag arguing about whether to set up new universities in Dublin or bring in a Land Act to give Irish peasants security of tenure (as, say Gladstone did). Hitler wouldn't have been talking about Irish Home Rule or how to preserve the independence of the Irish judicial system. He and his captains wouldn't have been sitting at home reading the poetry of WB Yeats. They'd have murdered him. And anyone who published him. In these senses - and more - the Nazi occupation of Ireland would have been rather different to the British one.
If by this you mean that we'd have been better off with our comfy familiar oppressors, with whom we'd become almost chummy, at least at the level of the educated classes, then certainly. Better the devil you know, and all that.
But you also have to understand that up until relatively recently, the number one enemy for Irish people was Britain, and for good reason. I won't go into the lurid details, you know them well, and anyone who doesn't can start with the
Penal Laws. I don't want to get all victim-y about it, it was a long time ago and we all get along fine now but you really have to be in the place of the oppressed at the time to form a view on how that should feel, and how you should react. So, in defence of derailing the thread, when someone scoffs at our neutrality from the viewpoint of a centuries old oppressor, they can get fucked. It might not have been a wise choice strategically but I don't care. It was our decision, and we fought and died and were butchered and starved and robbed before we got to a place where we had the right to make that decision.
To get boldly back to the topic, I believe Churchill had a nuanced relationship with the Irish. On the one hand, as you say, he was sometimes on our side with regard to national issues, famously quoting that the Irish frustrated him on account of their refusal to be English, which I would take to be a sideways compliment. On the other hand, he was responsible for the infliction on us of the
Black and Tans, and everyone should click that link to find out what a bunch of savage c*nts they were. My maternal grandfather, after whom my son is named, had a brother murdered by them. They
burned my city in 1920. This may be history but for some of us, it's personal history.
Corky, I would heartily recommend you to read the chapter on 'The Emergency' in Joe Lee's book, Modern Ireland. Politics and Society 1912-1985 (Cambridge 1989). Lee is a scholar, not a polemicist. He's also a Corkman, if I remember right. The book is one of the most beautifully written history books I've ever read and suffused throughout with a subtle irony as well as tremendous authority.
My wife has a history degree from University College Cork, where he was professor of the Modern History department. I haven't read it. She's not impressed with me.
