It isn't anything new to those of us aware of what is happening, but something that, as the Taoiseach admits, the Irish are "blissfully unaware of" as they live in their neutrality fantasy that "sure we're grand!" He made the point that the Irish really live in their deluded bubble.
Part of that bubble is of course due to geography. Ireland perpetually is unaware of things outside its inward-looking society. After World War II, international leaders were flabbergasted at how much Ireland lived in its own bubble. International leaders would meet Irish leaders and find them off in their own reality. The world was worried about the prospect of a nuclear war with the Soviet Union, and the risk of mass starvation, yet when they'd meet the Irish Minister for External Affairs he would want to talk about nothing but partition, the Irish border, the treaty, and being good Catholics showing loyalty to the Pope.
That was demonstrated when the Atlantic Treaty was signed creating NATO. Ireland wanted to join NATO, a point Minister for External Affairs Sean MacBride made clear in the Dáil and Seanad in February 1949. But all MacBride and the First Inter-Party Government wanted to talk about in order to join NATO was . . . partition!!! Seriously! The government, a bit like some in Ireland today, thought other countries were desperate to get Ireland to join NATO - and so all they had to do is get other members joining NATO to gang up on Britain and force it to withdraw from Northern Ireland and so end partition as a quid pro quo to get Ireland into NATO.
In fact, then as now, other countries weren't fixated on getting Ireland into NATO, and they couldn't give a damn about some 'silly squabble' over partition in Ireland. They had far bigger issues on their plate, like the status of Berlin, millions of refugees, the risk of war, the fact that many countries were bankrupt, to worry about the "dreary steeples of Fermanagh and Tyrone emerging once again", to use Churchill's famous phrase from 1922 once again.
It didn't help that Ireland's reputation had been catastrophically damaged by de Valera's crass condolences on Hitler's death.
The very idea that NATO members were going to gang up against Britain on behalf of Ireland was deluded in the extreme, but typical of how out-of-touch the Irish were. The war to the Irish was just 'the Emergency', where the main problems were no petrol and rationing food. To the other countries planning to join NATO, the war involved Nazi armies, Blitzkrieg, the bombing of cities, concentration camps and gas chambers, with millions dead. The Irish were entirely on a different wavelength to everyone else and living in a different reality.
Ireland's plot to use NATO membership to force British withdraw from the North failed abysmally.
Ireland's tendency to live in its own bubble has long been an issue. It remains an issue alive today in Ireland's neutrality delusions. Real neutrality is expensive, involves a large armed forces, and usually involves conscription (Sixty-six percent of remaining neutrals in Europe have conscription. Only one-third of NATO members do). It involves having a significant size of navy and air force. Irish neutrality however involves little defence spending, a two-ship navy, an air force with no means to intercept anything, and a tiny military incapable of fulfilling the elementary duties of a military due to chronic lack of defence spending. Whenever a problem arose, we play the 'beal bocht', even though richer than many NATO members, and look to get NATO to protect us for free with taxpayers in other countries paying our bills.
The reality is that continental Europe knows full well that it is being targeted by Putin's Russia, that efforts are being made to destabilise their states, that fundamental infrastructure is being targeted, that a full cyber war is being waged against them. The closer a country is to Russia, the more brutally they are being targeted and the more worried their citizens are.
Some countries in Southern Europe are less nervous than those in Central and Eastern Europe. However none is as much in its bubble of denial as Ireland. Part of that was due to World War II. Lots of neutrals naively thought the Second Hague Convention's declaration that "The territory of neutral Powers is inviolable" - even though that was broken by Germany in 1914 in invading Luxembourg and Belgium. World War II shattered them of that illusion - as neutrals Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway and Finland were invaded. It showed that the 'guarantee' in Hague II Title V Article I is worthless. If a country wants to attack a neutral it will. Hague is nothing more than an unenforceable gentlemen's agreement. That was why Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Norway abandoned neutrality after World War II and joined NATO. Finland and Sweden have since joined.
Ireland may well have been one of those neutrals Hitler planned to invade, though historians are uncertain if Operation Green, invading Ireland, was a real plan or a dummy one. If it had been invaded, that would have woken the Irish pretty quickly to the uselessness of Hague II's protection. The fact that it wasn't allows devotees of neutrality to cling to the delusion that it is protected by Hague II - despite Hague II not having protected any single country in its one hundred and fifteen years in force.
The extent to which the Irish remain "blissfully unaware" of how dangerous the situation is can be seen in the fact that Ireland has no full-time stand alone Defence Minister, has barely functioning defence, a laughably low defence budget, and the fact that neither RTÉ nor Virgin Media even bothers to have a Defence Correspondent.
The delusion was summed up by a typically crass intervention by Michael D Higgins where he lashed out at Estonia for taking defence seriously by increasing its defence spending as if it were acting aggressively. Typically he ignored that Russia has explicitly threatened it, that Russia spends 7.5% of GDP on defence, had been massing soldiers at its borders and had tried to provocatively steal part of its waters in breach of international waters. Then again, Higgins like many on the left is oblivious to the behaviour of Russia while always being in a rush to cast the first stone against democracies.
He is being replaced by an even more clueless nutter on the issue - a hard left woman who equates limited German rearmament in 2025, that it has to do to repair decades of underfunding, with the extreme and illegal aggressive rearmament of Hitler in the 1930s.
The Irish have no idea that not alone is Europe in a highly dangerous state, but it is in particular danger. 97% of the most vital data cables that Europe depend on are in Irish waters and the Irish waters are where they are most vulnerable. All Putin would have to do to throw Europe into chaos, including shutting its banks, emptying its ATMs, stopping its cards from working, etc would be to attack those cables in Irish waters.
Ireland is rated as one of the top three targets for Putin in any war: the Suwalki Gap; Gotland; cables in Ireland's waters.
Add to that Ireland is exceptionally vulnerable because it is dependent of underwater connectors to literally keep the lights on. Cut those interconnectors, and Ireland would lose 50% of its electricity generation capacity. If that happened, the government's own analysis makes it clear it would take six months minimum to fix the interconnectors. In the meantime there would be national electricity rationing. Major industrial users would be cut off indefinitely to give priority to homes, hospitals, schools, etc.
No other country is as vulnerable as Ireland is heavily reliant on electricity generation using gas but in an act of monumental stupidity has no gas storage facility. Add to that the Corrib gas supply is almost gone and for ideological reasons no other gas fields were opened.
A core aim of Russia is to destabilise the EU - which is why targeting vital data cables is central to his tactics. Destabilise states by things like throwing the electricity supply into chaos and again you make world headlines. Ireland, an isolated island with no gas storage and a demand that almost matches supply, and dependency on a limited number of interconnectors and just a two-ship navy to protect them, is a perfect target. Everyone else in Europe knows it.
Maybe it will take the lights going out to wake up their Irish from their blissful ignorance and realise just how dangerous the situation is internationally right now, and how its chronically underfunded defence is plain reckless and stupid.
It may be Ireland's Rotterdam moment. One prominent Dutch politician from Rotterdam was a pacifist who was convinced in World War II that the Netherlands was safe thanks to the Second Hague Convention. He was adamant. Then on 10th May 1940 the Nazis attacked the Netherlands, Hague or no Hague. On the 14th May, Rotterdam was bombed severely by the Nazis. Only then did he finally realise what Luxembourg and Belgium learned in 1914 - that Hague as protection is worthless. He wrote "I believed we were protected. I was wrong." His city, and his family, were destroyed in the invasion. He later went on to campaign for the Netherlands to join the new NATO being created, saying his country must never make the same mistake again.
Part of that bubble is of course due to geography. Ireland perpetually is unaware of things outside its inward-looking society. After World War II, international leaders were flabbergasted at how much Ireland lived in its own bubble. International leaders would meet Irish leaders and find them off in their own reality. The world was worried about the prospect of a nuclear war with the Soviet Union, and the risk of mass starvation, yet when they'd meet the Irish Minister for External Affairs he would want to talk about nothing but partition, the Irish border, the treaty, and being good Catholics showing loyalty to the Pope.
That was demonstrated when the Atlantic Treaty was signed creating NATO. Ireland wanted to join NATO, a point Minister for External Affairs Sean MacBride made clear in the Dáil and Seanad in February 1949. But all MacBride and the First Inter-Party Government wanted to talk about in order to join NATO was . . . partition!!! Seriously! The government, a bit like some in Ireland today, thought other countries were desperate to get Ireland to join NATO - and so all they had to do is get other members joining NATO to gang up on Britain and force it to withdraw from Northern Ireland and so end partition as a quid pro quo to get Ireland into NATO.
In fact, then as now, other countries weren't fixated on getting Ireland into NATO, and they couldn't give a damn about some 'silly squabble' over partition in Ireland. They had far bigger issues on their plate, like the status of Berlin, millions of refugees, the risk of war, the fact that many countries were bankrupt, to worry about the "dreary steeples of Fermanagh and Tyrone emerging once again", to use Churchill's famous phrase from 1922 once again.
It didn't help that Ireland's reputation had been catastrophically damaged by de Valera's crass condolences on Hitler's death.
The very idea that NATO members were going to gang up against Britain on behalf of Ireland was deluded in the extreme, but typical of how out-of-touch the Irish were. The war to the Irish was just 'the Emergency', where the main problems were no petrol and rationing food. To the other countries planning to join NATO, the war involved Nazi armies, Blitzkrieg, the bombing of cities, concentration camps and gas chambers, with millions dead. The Irish were entirely on a different wavelength to everyone else and living in a different reality.
Ireland's plot to use NATO membership to force British withdraw from the North failed abysmally.
Ireland's tendency to live in its own bubble has long been an issue. It remains an issue alive today in Ireland's neutrality delusions. Real neutrality is expensive, involves a large armed forces, and usually involves conscription (Sixty-six percent of remaining neutrals in Europe have conscription. Only one-third of NATO members do). It involves having a significant size of navy and air force. Irish neutrality however involves little defence spending, a two-ship navy, an air force with no means to intercept anything, and a tiny military incapable of fulfilling the elementary duties of a military due to chronic lack of defence spending. Whenever a problem arose, we play the 'beal bocht', even though richer than many NATO members, and look to get NATO to protect us for free with taxpayers in other countries paying our bills.
The reality is that continental Europe knows full well that it is being targeted by Putin's Russia, that efforts are being made to destabilise their states, that fundamental infrastructure is being targeted, that a full cyber war is being waged against them. The closer a country is to Russia, the more brutally they are being targeted and the more worried their citizens are.
Some countries in Southern Europe are less nervous than those in Central and Eastern Europe. However none is as much in its bubble of denial as Ireland. Part of that was due to World War II. Lots of neutrals naively thought the Second Hague Convention's declaration that "The territory of neutral Powers is inviolable" - even though that was broken by Germany in 1914 in invading Luxembourg and Belgium. World War II shattered them of that illusion - as neutrals Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway and Finland were invaded. It showed that the 'guarantee' in Hague II Title V Article I is worthless. If a country wants to attack a neutral it will. Hague is nothing more than an unenforceable gentlemen's agreement. That was why Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Norway abandoned neutrality after World War II and joined NATO. Finland and Sweden have since joined.
Ireland may well have been one of those neutrals Hitler planned to invade, though historians are uncertain if Operation Green, invading Ireland, was a real plan or a dummy one. If it had been invaded, that would have woken the Irish pretty quickly to the uselessness of Hague II's protection. The fact that it wasn't allows devotees of neutrality to cling to the delusion that it is protected by Hague II - despite Hague II not having protected any single country in its one hundred and fifteen years in force.
The extent to which the Irish remain "blissfully unaware" of how dangerous the situation is can be seen in the fact that Ireland has no full-time stand alone Defence Minister, has barely functioning defence, a laughably low defence budget, and the fact that neither RTÉ nor Virgin Media even bothers to have a Defence Correspondent.
The delusion was summed up by a typically crass intervention by Michael D Higgins where he lashed out at Estonia for taking defence seriously by increasing its defence spending as if it were acting aggressively. Typically he ignored that Russia has explicitly threatened it, that Russia spends 7.5% of GDP on defence, had been massing soldiers at its borders and had tried to provocatively steal part of its waters in breach of international waters. Then again, Higgins like many on the left is oblivious to the behaviour of Russia while always being in a rush to cast the first stone against democracies.
He is being replaced by an even more clueless nutter on the issue - a hard left woman who equates limited German rearmament in 2025, that it has to do to repair decades of underfunding, with the extreme and illegal aggressive rearmament of Hitler in the 1930s.
The Irish have no idea that not alone is Europe in a highly dangerous state, but it is in particular danger. 97% of the most vital data cables that Europe depend on are in Irish waters and the Irish waters are where they are most vulnerable. All Putin would have to do to throw Europe into chaos, including shutting its banks, emptying its ATMs, stopping its cards from working, etc would be to attack those cables in Irish waters.
Ireland is rated as one of the top three targets for Putin in any war: the Suwalki Gap; Gotland; cables in Ireland's waters.
Add to that Ireland is exceptionally vulnerable because it is dependent of underwater connectors to literally keep the lights on. Cut those interconnectors, and Ireland would lose 50% of its electricity generation capacity. If that happened, the government's own analysis makes it clear it would take six months minimum to fix the interconnectors. In the meantime there would be national electricity rationing. Major industrial users would be cut off indefinitely to give priority to homes, hospitals, schools, etc.
No other country is as vulnerable as Ireland is heavily reliant on electricity generation using gas but in an act of monumental stupidity has no gas storage facility. Add to that the Corrib gas supply is almost gone and for ideological reasons no other gas fields were opened.
A core aim of Russia is to destabilise the EU - which is why targeting vital data cables is central to his tactics. Destabilise states by things like throwing the electricity supply into chaos and again you make world headlines. Ireland, an isolated island with no gas storage and a demand that almost matches supply, and dependency on a limited number of interconnectors and just a two-ship navy to protect them, is a perfect target. Everyone else in Europe knows it.
Maybe it will take the lights going out to wake up their Irish from their blissful ignorance and realise just how dangerous the situation is internationally right now, and how its chronically underfunded defence is plain reckless and stupid.
It may be Ireland's Rotterdam moment. One prominent Dutch politician from Rotterdam was a pacifist who was convinced in World War II that the Netherlands was safe thanks to the Second Hague Convention. He was adamant. Then on 10th May 1940 the Nazis attacked the Netherlands, Hague or no Hague. On the 14th May, Rotterdam was bombed severely by the Nazis. Only then did he finally realise what Luxembourg and Belgium learned in 1914 - that Hague as protection is worthless. He wrote "I believed we were protected. I was wrong." His city, and his family, were destroyed in the invasion. He later went on to campaign for the Netherlands to join the new NATO being created, saying his country must never make the same mistake again.
⏩ Jim Duffy is a writer-historian.
is organising a tenth anniversary commemoration for Volunteer Tommy Gallagher.
