Comments by "Taint ABird" (@taintabird23) on "The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered" channel.

'This particularly nasty action, made it clear, that they were not being punished because they deserted, but because they joined British Forces.' This is bit is a lie.
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@jimbeam3280 They were punished because they deserted AND joined the British Forces, the armed forces of a country that had never given an undertaking NOT to invade Ireland. It was a threat. They had taken an Oath of Allegiance to the Irish State, and now they were taking an Oath for another. They were traitors. There was no opposition to Irishmen joining the British Armym which is what you are implying, during WW2. The Government was committed to providing employment for all demobbed Irish Defence Forces personnel. To avail of Civil Service jobs, those demobbed soldiers had to hold a military discharge certificate. This was supplied only to those with satisfactory military records and any man dismissed for desertion weren’t around to receive one.. Thus the seven year disqualification - the Starvation Order - was a dead letter as they were already barred anyway. The deserters were allowed to collect all pay due to them up to the time they deserted. They were allowed to claim British benefits while living in Ireland, in fact the Irish government negotiated a deal with the British allowing them to claim their UK benefits while living in Ireland. None went to prison. There could be no question of allowing the men to go unpunished; that would have undermined Irish claims to neutrality, eroded morale in the forces and set a dangerous precedent that desertion would be tolerated. (Bernard Kelly, Dev’s Treatment of Irish Army Deserters: vindictive or pragmatic). However, I will agree that the punishment of their families was outrageous. Such treatment of children was typical of the Ireland of that time though. Taking the oath of Allegience in one country while still under an Oath of Allegience in another is a prima facia case for desertion. And what about the hypocrisy? Well known Irish Puppeteer Eugene Lambert was arrested in Dover while returning from a family holiday in about 1980 and accused of having deserted the British Army in Omagh in 1946. He was taken from his family, hauled up before a Magistrate and the Irish Gov. was told it was part of a campaign to catch deserters going back over decades. It turned out to be a case of mistaken identity, but as recently as the 1980s there was still no pardon for Irishmen who deserted the British forces during peacetime! About 5,000 Irishmen deserted during the war. According to the Daily Mail they all joined the British Army to fight the Nazis, however, only 100 Irish men are known for certain to have deserted the Irish Army and joined the British Army. It also the case that many deserted for reasons other than opposition to the Nazis.
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'As an American citizen he survived 1916, but as a leader was morally bankrupt.' No historian has ever stated that de Valera was morally bankrupt. 'Whereas the appeasers of Nazi Germany in Britain are only now being re-evaluated as “practical men”, de Valera persists as as a man with no moral stature.' Again, this bypasses reality. De Valera was indeed a very moral man, but he was not a dictator. He was a democratic leader who gave his people what they wanted. 'Plenty of social horrors have emerged in Ireland in recent decades that his Separatist ethos reinforced.' It had nothing to do with his 'separatists ethos'. It had to do with Irish society in general. Today, Irish people blame 'de Valera's Ireland' for the 'social horrors'. This is because it is easier to blame de Valera than face the fact that de Valera was elected again and again by their ancestors and that de Valera and every other politician in government and in every party espoused the same socially conservative values. Everybody was in on it.
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