Ireland during World War II

The Republic of Ireland of course was neutral.  I had not known these facts:

1. Irish were allowed to emigrate to Britain to work, but with assurances they would not be conscripted.

2. Ireland engaged in heavy censorship during the War, mostly to stop people from getting the impression that the War was a moral struggle between good and evil.  The government wished to avoid pressure to enter the war, fearing the initial strong support for neutrality might fade.  This censorship even covered the telephone and telegraph, or at least tried to.

3. German broadcasts to Ireland did get through, and “There was still a tendency in Ireland at the end of the war to believe that Irish suffering was more marked than that experienced anywhere else in Europe, a narrow mindset which government policies facilitated.”

4. Erwin Schrödinger spent much of the War in Ireland.

5. The Belfast Blitz of 1941 made 100,000 homeless and damaged 53 percent of the homes in Belfast.

6. Following the death of Hitler, Irish Prime Minister Éamon de Valera visited the German embassy in Dublin to express his condolences, an action that was much criticized at the time.

That is all from The Transformation of Ireland 1900-2000, a quite good book by Diarmaid Ferriter.