We didn't have the manpower nor the finances to have a well resourced conventional army. Ireland's biggest strength has always been guerrilla warfare, we're masters at it which is why the mighty British Army could not defeat a couple of thousand of IRA men over a 30 year period . It's not that hard to invade Ireland but as history shows it's near impossible to conquer it and subdue the people.

Youd be suprized how much damage 20 men armed with hurles and a few pints in them can accomplish

@@minillaman6717 hahaha

@@stallthedigger2599 Couldn't defeat? The IRA never defeated any army in battle, if the SS had colonised Ireland Himmler would've made the Black and Tans look like a pub fight in comparison.

Well. Those big guns at Cobh (Queenstown) were British. Bofors AA was Swedish. The Germans didn't have the "lift" to do Sealion; Green would have been a pipedream.

How did they defend us exactly

Look at germany in the 30s and look at ireland now and tell me that they protected us

Thank the Americans and russians The brits were losing before they joined the allies

@killian mul Without the existence of both the Royal Navy and RAF (but especially without the navy) as they were between 1939 and 1941, and Britain being fully at war with them, Nazi Germany-even with their smaller and less powerful navy-would’ve easily been able to invade Ireland by sea, and to then proceed to completely and utterly pulverize the entire independent Irish Republic into submission, blitzkreig-style. Simple as that.

They were the bad guys of WW2

Hi

😂😂😂😂

Different generation. You'd be surprised what they might have been able to do. You're judging by the quality of Irish people today.

Actually the. British disagreed! In 1941 the British, after being allowed to inspect Irish Army bases and summer manoeuvres, concluded that the Irish would be likely to hold and effectively counter attack any likely German invasion. It was expected that the Irish would hold the Germans on the Suir and Barrow, and would harass the Germans allowing their supplies to deplete before the counter offensive. Remember German troops would have to cross a wide sea, with the RN and other navies in it and Ireland was mostly beyond German fighter and bomber range. The British assumed a maximum of 25,000 German paras and some airdropped light armour and weaponry used in an invasion of Irela d. They would have been outnumbered and outgunned by the Irish who had a reasonable amount of machine guns, artillery, a smattering or tanks, but more importantly domestically produced IFVs. The likely reason the Germans never tried it is because they made the same assessment. The British were also very impressed with Irish army intelligence who had managed to catch and turn Nazi spies inIrela d and were able to send decoded messages on German sea activities to the British.

People misunderstand the nature of a likely German invasion. While Brotaon was still in the war no large sea landing would have been likely so it would have been paratroop only. The Irish would have outgunned and outnumbered them.

What are you basing this on? What specialist knowledge do you have? Any qualifications or experience?

Yeah but I think because of Irelands morale they could hold out long enough until britian comes

You are overestimating the German ability to invade Ireland.- A sea bourne invasion was impossible meaning it had to be lightly armed paratroops. The German para force were not up to taking on a project of that size. Also they would have had no air support as Ireland was mostly out of range for most German offensive aircraft.

Germany wasn't in any position to invade Ireland during the war. If it had, the Irish Army had a plan worked out with Britain.

Cry some more, get over it

Well the Irish did a lot of naughty things to us for 400 years, so...

@@Brecconable As naughty as allowing one million people to starve to death in own country, the richest in the world?

@@markpower9081 The famine affected everyone across the Isles.

@@Brecconable Blight affected people across Europe. The famine happened in Ireland.