Sir, – Focusing on the moral rights and wrongs of neutrality ignores what deserves to be the big issue – economics.
Subjected to a crippling Churchillian supply squeeze, the economic viability of Irish neutrality was only assured by bad tempered Irish-British barter deals, most notably the withholding of Guinness supplies to the UK in return for much-needed agricultural goods.
Irish neutrality may have been too highly principled, but it certainly wasn’t greedy. Due to geography and lack of natural resources, Ireland could not – and did not – reap the handsome economic benefits of neutrality like the other European neutrals (Spain, Switzerland, Sweden and Portugal) that all traded with Nazi Germany. – Yours, etc,
Dr BRYCE EVANS,
Liverpool Hope
University,
Hope Park,
Liverpool.