Robert Fisk's book is now, over a dozen years old, and perspectives on Irish neutrality have altered somewhat in that time; but as a well documented record it is still highly valuable. For a small country with a tiny population, Ireland's wartime politics were remarkably complex, and de Valera's talent for ambiguity added to this rather than lessened it. The issue of the Irish ports and Britain's claim on them seems a remote one now, and one wonders just how strategically relevant it ever was anyhow, considering that the Battle of the Atlantic was mainly fought far off in mid ocean, well beyond the range of most planes of that period. The presence of German and Italian embassies in Dublin naturally angered Britain and America, and while we know now that de Valera's neutrality was basically pro Allies, to many people outside Ireland it looked merely as if "Eire" was living on another man's wound. Germany sent agents to make contact with the IRA, while Hempel, the Ambassador in Dublin, resented this and felt it would damage rather than help his county's cause (he was right), There were some strange pockets of pro German, and even" pro Nazi, sentiment in the country, though it is plain that these were quite untypical of the whole, and many Irish men and women served in the British armed forces. The courage and even heroism of Eire's small merchant marine, whose ships were often under attack from both German and Allied planes, is one of the more admirable aspects of this strange twilight stage between peace and war, officially known as "the Emergency". As for the once celebrated verbal give and take between de Valera and Churchill, most of it is ancient history now and has been well covered by other writers.