Ireland - now considered one of most vulnerable countries in the EU (defense wise)

Yep. Reverting to type. Ok to attack the French for doing it to them but then they do the same to us!

Sadly no, I was under the same impression as you until I started reading about thhe histroy of money.

Germany itself not Hitler, was attacked as soon as the govt issued its own currency. Im sure you know that prior to his rule, the german people were suffering under hyperinflation. Well Hitler literally put a stop to that by creating a new currency debt free. Thus Germany prospered while the rest of western world ate shoe leather.

Hitler had good relations with Chamberlain, but when the owners of the Private Central Bank (guess the name) wanted him gone they bankrolled Churchill's political campaign (he was flat broke, and had significant debts) under the agreement that he get the Americans to help overthrow Germany.

Someone said earlier that those who wish the country to have a reasonable defense force are fantasists. Really? I would say that those who wrap themselves with a neutrality banner are utter fantasists. Neutrality on it's own won't protect any country as history shows.

As for someone else to come to our defense. Well you expect their people to send their sons to possible death but you won't?

You know folks, if you think Ireland doesn't need to defend itself from private central banks, i suggest you ask your teacher's to go on a school tour to Collins barracks and ask about the Anglo Irish Bank sign hanging up there.

In short, not only is our currency under foreign control but now Ireland's natural resources are too. Oil, Gas and water!

….

course we are. 🙄

As good as the rest of the fiction around the topic of Irish defense I suppose.

Wrong on both counts. Let’s stop with this defeatist rhetoric which is an excuse to do nothing which we are very good at. As a small nation in western Europe we can contribute a significant amount to NATO’s effort esp. NATO’s defence of its western flank. And as for what NATO can do for us, it is surely high time we stopped expecting our former colonial masters to protect us from external threats 100 years after they left.

(Speaking as someone who thinks Ireland should invest a lot more in military and bring it to level of comparable smallish EU member states not under military threat)…I don't know if they (Russia) really have this freedom to operate, because the UK is next door and planes will be (and I think regularly are ?) sent up from their bases to check it out when the Russian airforce aircraft are doing something odd with transponders turned off near our West coast.

I suppose this is costly for the UK though, and uses up resources/wastes their time to an extent. The burden on them/their military is probably going to increase in coming years too.

That is probably what is behind the raised focus on the issue (parlous state of our military) in their media, they (and EU countries like France perhaps) want us to step up and cover at least some of it so they don't have to.

Seems UK are willing to accept the loss of control it implies (i.e. in the future, hopefully it might be our radars scanning the sky and our own jets patrolling the airspace, vs today where they control that airspace, and tell us what is going on in it as regards military aircraft etc. as a courtesy/for safety).

Tough shyte if it costs them money. UK covers our airspace incidentally, while they're covering their own. As a result of nato-rus tensions. (not of our making).

If they want to relinquish their present incidental policing of Irish airspace then they should go ahead. Let the Russians get over the eastern part of the Irish sea before they can respond.

Nobody in nato or UK armed forces is signing off on that risk, so they have to leave it as it is, and can go whistle.