Dudley Edwards’ suggestion fanciful

I was intrigued by Ruth Dudley Edwards statement during the the Prime Time debate on RTÉ 1 on Wednesday, 23rd March, when she said that she was proud of the 240,000 Irishmen who had fought in WWI saying that they saved us from terrible consequences that would have ensued if Germany had won the Great War.

I found the suggestion a little fanciful. What does she think would have happened?

Does she seriously think that Ireland would have been invaded by the Germans; that they would have ethnically cleansed most of the country; that such a cleansing would have brought famine, death and destruction on a grand scale and introduced German settlers and a new German landlord class, while at the same time ruthlessly suppressing any resistance? Would so many Irish have ended up serving in the German army in an ever expanding German Empire as they, the Germans, strove for world domination believing themselves to be superior to all other nations? Would we have ended up speaking German and could it be that our mindset would become so changed that we would even be proud of the service of Irishmen given in defence of this great German Empire. Such a flight of fancy! But then again, perhaps the possibility of such happenings is not so far fetched. After all, did not another nation of Teutonic origin, the Anglo Saxons, show some form in that kind of business?

Diarmuid P Ó Luasa

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