EIRE AND THE WAR

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 26, 9 March 1942, Page 5

EIRE AND THE WAR

IS IT POSSIBLE TO HOLD ALOOF? NOT ATTITUDE OF THE PEOPLE I spent last Christmas at Miami Beach. There's nothing so unusual in that, but something that 11. V. Kaltenborn said on the radio and the; news of Washington's joining with the British to seek Irish ports and bases brought it. vividly back to me. Mr Kaltenborn was quoting Premier Eamon De Valera as saying that Eire would continue to- maintain a "benevolent neutrality," despite the United States entry into World War Two —and he wondered how long liie Irish Republic could continue to oppose the interests of its friends (writes Mialcolm W. BayIcy in the Christian Science Monitor) . It Avas under a Christmas EVe moonlight that I heard from the lips of an Irishman —one avlio had seen service 1 under lire and yet had no use for Avar- —a tale that showed me that those avlio haA-e tasted the sweetness of freedom can never iorgct it and avill not long stand idle while their brothers' liberty is endangered. "Hitler Must Be Licked" Perhaps it Avas the coming of Christmas morning perhaps the beauty of the scene, perhaps, too, the Avar that CAeryone talked about —but suddenly I was listening to a ioAV earnest flood of Avords from my hitherto quiet, almost taciturn, Irish friend. We. had been discussing some time before the possibility of landing an expeditionary force in occupied Europe. "I Uiioav Avliat it is to land on a beach under fire and its no easy job," he Avas saying. •'Maybe you noticed that peculiar scar in the middle of my forehead. That's hoAV I got it." He had been a captain, it seemed, in the Free State forces tinder Cosgrave when De Valera started his rebellion. His was a thrilling yarn of landing in n coa t c Avhile the moon masked the clouds, of other lights and narrow escapes—and still more remarkable adA'enturcs before and after the war. After the Republicans gained control of the Government, my friend came to America. "What a Avonderful country this is," he Avoukl say, quietly, yet with vehemence. "But to keep it this Avay we'll have to do something about it. That man Hitler's got to be licked." "Do many of you Irishmen fee! that Avay? I thought most of Irc-< land looked on this as Britain's Avar." "Don't you fool yourself," retorted my friend. "The Eire Government may say it's neutral, but the people of Ireland aren't. TheyVe no use at all for Nazis. They're not lovers of the English especially, but they knoAA r what Avould be Avorse. And most of them arc ready to fig lit. The Irish oA'er here are far more hitter about the British than those in Ireland." I asked him lioav lie accounted for that. He ventured to guess it Avas because most of the Irish had come to America at a time of persecution or of hard times Avhich they blamed on the British, and they and their children retained bitter memories. Interests Identical "The Irish people to-day get along all right Avith the English. They are glad to have England buy their cattle and A-egetables and dairy products and linen and the like. The interests of the tAvo people are identical. Ireland Avould tight to the last man if the Nazis tried to get a foothold there. The Irish Avould never yiekl to Hitler nor help him to defeat England."