Is it time to join Nato

And in other news, the Defence Forces have said they are “aware” that two Russian-flagged ships equipped with sub-sea cable laying technology have doubled back towards the Irish west coast late this week. Michael Healy Rea said in the Dail he heard on Sky news the ships “raised serious concerns among military officials due to their movements around the IRIS high-speed, subsea communications cable, which became operational last year and runs west off the Irish coast”.

The two commercial ships, named Umka and Bahktemir, departed from the Russian port of Murmansk on February 23 on a course for the Equatorial Guinea port of Malabo.

The 79.8 metre-long Umka is an offshore supply vessel and the Bakhtemir, also 79.8 metres long, is a salvage and rescue ship. It is equipped with diving platforms and subsea submersibles capable of deep water work on infrastructure.

Surveillance of vital subsea communications cables has been increased since reported sabotage last September of the Nord Stream pipelines, built to transport gas from the Russian Federation to Germany through the Baltic. The pipelines are owned by the Russian company Gazprom, and no group has as yet been identified for the attack.

In a statement, the Defence Forces said that the Air Corps and the Naval Service are “aware” of the two vessels (they heard it on the BBC.) but “won't be releasing any further information on the matter”.

Both the Air Corps and Naval Service continue to monitor activity on TV daily, despite it being the weekend. No Irish ship are currently at sea but Irish navy personnel have been warned they may have to - depending on the weather forecast from met eireann- pack "hang sandwidges" next week, to bring their sleeping bags and may not be able to go home to their mammies for dinner each day. Extra compensation will be offered for the inconvenience. If their mission is successful in travelling from to Cork to the west coast, they hope to make it back to dry land in time to appear on a special edition of the Late Late next weekend. Mr Healy Rea has wished them all the luck in intercepting the Russian invaders, and warned that the Skibberean Eagle is keeping an eye on them. There is not a pair of binoculars to be had along the west coast, complained Mr Healy Rae, and a called on the government to urgently provide our navy with underwater binoculars so our navy could see under the sea what the Russians were up to.

Not too much of an ask to be suspicious of the Russians ask the Cork fishermen!

So much wrong in this thread I don't know where to start. And dont have the time right now.

So a quick tidy up.

• Russia has the means to cut submarine internet cables throughout the Atlantic, so Ireland needn't come into the equation at all.
• Irish neutrality in WW2 was absolutely correct, the outcome was unknowable at the time and Dev's primary duty was to Ireland, Ireland had little influence on the outcome, and that lack of influence was in large part attributable to the UK absolutely wrecking the place and leaving it without the capacity to help anyone very much. Ireland did however still offer a little help as can be found in the Cranborne report to the UK parliament. Devs condolence was to the German people, which was diplomatic protocol. UK royals met with Hitler as good friends - king Edward supported his views, there are photos of the royals seig heiling, the British parliament was home to the leader of the British union of fascists - Sir Oswald Mosley, the Wehrmacht had a British detachment known as the British Freikorps. Britain invented the concentration camp. How did any of these things go down around the world? Let us consider how many condolences would have been paid on the death of queen Victoria, and that fat btch oversaw the systematic deaths of more millions than Adolf.
• Zelensky being an actor and comedian is not news and its not really worth mentioning, Regan was an actor.
• Nato did nothing to stop a nato member from colluding with loyalist terror groups to murder Irish people. A nato member wont reveal the truth about the Dublin and Monaghan bombings in which 33 Irish people were murdered. A nato member shot unarmed Irish civil rights marchers. We can't ally ourselves with those who have murdered our people and still won't admit it.

And that's what this thread boils down to for some posters - Britain. Almost the entire post is directed at the UK.

The endless regurgitation of DeValera's condolences to Herr Rumpel. This was protocol? Karl Donitz, Hitler's successor as head of state, tried that angle when he wanted to talk to the Americans on behalf of his "government". Eisenhower put a stop to that and arrested the lot of them.

Condolences to the German people? Yes. On the death of their leader - a man who'd ripped Europe apart with his idealogical war.

This wasn't the time for protocol.

Why would they ,

They are a defensive alliance,not a political party why should they care about anything that happened in NI over the last 50 years ,

Because one of their members was involved in state sponsored terrorism against a peaceful neighboring country.

And not so much as a single comment. Not even some diplomatic platitude like 'we regret' or 'it is with disappointment blah blah' nothing. Just see no evil hear no evil.

And of course UK is still a member, how can we ever militarily ally with them after such an abusive history.

DUP/UDA are in govt with the tories. And recently one of their higher parliamentarians, Patel, was on screen (stupidly) suggesting that UK would leverage Irish food supplies to bring us to heel.

We need to do more, no question but for historical reasons it might be a bridge too far to join the UK in such an alliance at this time. That doesn't mean we can't support Ukraine in their struggle.

Two sentences, one about internet cables, the other about Zelensky.

The rest of your post was a rant against Britain.

Four countries signed the Munich Agreement.

They are all members of Nato.

against what?

Anything....

Attack, foreign agression, sabotage of vital infrastructure,

Very good.

But can you answer the question with anything specific. Im going to say no, you can't.

The only half decent argument I've seen was the internet cables effort. And Russia can cut internet cables anywhere in the greater Atlantic with few exceptions, so that sort of takes Ireland out of the question.

"Russia, by comparison, doesn't rely on the cables as much, and it has a substantial fleet of spy submarines to operate on them".

You can bet they have a plan to do just that (unlikely I know). They had during WW2 but they believed it wasn't worth their while and would have upset Irish America.