We must halt any kneejerk decisions about neutrality

AHEADLONG, ill-considered rush to join Nato, or any EU defence alliance as a direct consequence of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s murderous onslaught on Ukraine, must be halted. We all need time and space to consider fully all the implications of such a fundamental move which, if it occurs, would change Ireland’s ‘personality’, internally and externally, for generations to come, probably forever.

This is, without any doubt, a seminal moment for Ireland, and for all the world.

Russian dictator Putin is a dark and evil presence and his tyranny amounts to an existential threat to our very existence. His savagery poses a question we never really believed would arise in 21st-century Europe – should we abandon our traditional neutrality and join in military lockstep with our friends and neighbours to defend our lives and fundamental freedoms?

Should we conscript our young men and women to wear the Nato or EU boots, point their guns at the enemy and be prepared to pull the trigger?

TáNAISTE – and likely next Taoiseach – Leo Varadkar certainly appears to think so, making the point that our military neutrality won’t save us any longer, like it hasn’t saved Ukraine. But, Mr Varadkar fails to distinguish Ireland and Ukraine in terms of geography and the perceived military threat Ukraine would have posed for Russia if its aspiration to join Nato ever came to pass.

Similarly flawed was his contention that we’re all victims of a false assumption that the UK or America would save us if we were ever faced with the threat of invasion. In the unlikely event that anybody would ever wish to move into Ireland without our consent, would it not be reasonable to expect support from the Old Enemy, seeing as how they’d hardly be delighted to have Herr Putin or Xi Jinping looking at them through long-distance binoculars from Howth Head.

Also Mr Varadkar should acknowledge the extraordinary historical benefits of Irish neutrality during World War II, and since then in terms of our hugely valuable peacekeeping duties for the United Nations.

We’re not quite sure why Hitler’s Luftwaffe dropped bombs on the North Strand, Dublin, on May 31, 1941, in an attack that killed 28 people. The same goes for a German bomb dropped in Campile, Wexford, months earlier when three people lost their lives.

But we know for certain that it was for the purposes of terror and British surrender that the Satanic Fuhrer ordered the Blitz, focusing on London but spreading it out to other major cities in the UK, including Belfast.

By the time it ended almost 44,000 civilians had been slaughtered, including an astonishing 744 deaths in Belfast, Derry, Newtownards and Bangor in one night alone.

On a rough pro-rata basis, at least 3,000 to 4,000 innocent Irish civilians would have been killed if the Blitz had also included Ireland. Neutrality saved that many lives.

Also, then-Taoiseach Eamon de Valera co-operated with the Allies in all conceivable ways – detention of Axis personnel, weather reports, over-flight rights and the use of Irish diplomats in Europe to assist the fight against Nazism. By adding in the tens of thousands of Irish men who joined the British, American, Canadian and Australian armies, plus the extra advantage the Allies had of not having to tie down thousands of soldiers and resources to defend Ireland, it’s easy to understand the advantage Irish neutrality was for those waging war on Hitler.

THE concern now is whether those elements that made Irish neutrality so valuable in the past still apply today. Those in favour of change, in favour of us joining Nato or an EU defence alliance, must bear the burden of rebutting the presumption that they do. They will have to show why we need to go further than providing nonlethal humanitarian aid as we are now doing for Ukraine.

Getting stuck into the fight for freedom and humanity is an easy, attractive and instinctive option – but is it the right thing for the people of Ireland when our ‘talents’ may lie elsewhere? We all need to have a serious chat, knowing there are potentially dreadful consequences no matter how we decide.