If you want to know what the actual state of affairs was with regard to equipment prior to WW 2, then get the Irish Sword publication and it tells the whole story. The Goverment and Army were more than aware of how badly they were equipped and they started a programme of buying or manufacturing as much as they could afford. They examined every weapon that was in stores and concluded that the best route was to stay with British arms. There was a large pool of Civil War weapons but most were obsolete or rusted or of odd calibres so they were scrapped or stripped for spares. Old artillery guns were either scrapped or overhauled and modernised,such as the 18 pdr,which in 1939 was still a useful field gun. Thompsons of Carlow were commissioned to make mines, grenades and armoured cars and were very successful at this. A lot of personal equipment such as uniforms and webbing were made in Ireland from civil stocks of cloth, to avoid having to buy it from the UK. Groups of Officers were sent to the USA and UK to inspect arms for potential purchase but quite often, their suggestions were refused by the Dept of Finance. Often, as war got closer, actual placed orders were delayed by the vendor countries for political reasons. Every man of the Army knew full well that they were short of everything and the country tried valiantly to rearm and refit at a time of serious national poverty.
The UK navy got an aircraft carrier with no planes. The US navy lost a ship worth £9,000,000,000 because of a disgruntled sailor. Meanwhile the miniscule and poorly fund Irish naval service protects national waters and carries out rescue missions in the Mediterranean. Value for money it's no contest.
Irish Quartermaster: I could have sworn the surplus vendor described them as 'cheap STOLEN helmets' not 'stahlhelms'. Sorry boys, they'll have to do for yous.
As you are undoubtedly unaware the field kit and small arms of the Irish Defence Forces is way better than the British Army. However, there is never any point in pointing anything out to the chronically stupid.
@@conlaiarla journalists body armour with no molle capability, making it necessary to wear a chest rig over it to hold ordinance, dmrs with sights that lose zero after firing one round, small arms rifles with no emergency battle sight, not issued first aid kits, helmets that dont facilitate nvg or hearing protection, outdated bags with little to no storage space, watch their recruitment videos and look at soldiers taping their own flashlights onto rifles, yes TAPING. The list goes on
At 1:22 notice all the dents in the helmets. These are Vickers helmets, made in the UK. The metal was rubbish, too soft, and offered little or no protection.
Hitler was furious that the Irish Army purchased German style helmets from Britain. When looking for quotes, the Irish Army thought that the German helmets were too expensive and so went with the Vickers helmet.
The Dutch looked amazing in my opinion… they had very high quality uniforms, take for example the silk linings of the uniforms and the Dutch lion on the helmets! I like these uniforms too tho! Very simple but cool!
@John Johnson Sir, I think you are talking about the golden age wich took place in the 17th century… the Dutch still had most of the colony’s but the productivity was greatly reduced to the point that there was no money coming back to the homeland. So I think that the wealth of the golden age was all lost by the 1940s. They were rich but from things like the trading Harbor of Rotterdam and the coal…
I don't know how well they would have fought under Irish leadership? But under American military Irish-Americans earned over 50% of Medal of Honor awarded in WW 2
Best British General Montgomery ,Irishman. One of the best RAF leaders, Cunningham an Irish man. First VC won by Pilot Paddy Finucane, Irish. WW2, 14 VC won by Irishmen; 13 from the Irish Free State, 1 from 6 counties, a Catholic from Belfast. The "Loyalists" sons were in Trinity while they made shirts and thanked God DeValera kept them out of the war.
@@michaelslator64 De Valera son of a Hispanic father. As always fight outside of Ireland for others. Look at background of De Valera have to bring in outsider. Irish history is it not something.
@@irishjw DeValeras parentage is a grey area. Young girl, made pregnant by a local farmer goes to USA,; fabricated DeValera story. To counter your argument he was an American citizen who fought for Ireland. 25% of Wellingtons army were Irish. Were they warlike people or was it the best job they could get? It's easy to call them Shoneens or West Brits but at that time they did what was needed to survive.
I don't know how Bernard Law Montgomery was Irish considering he was born in England. He did have family connections to Londonderry and Moville (Co.Donegal).
Na during early ww2 the Kaiser was having great fun chopping down trees near his house in the neatherlands , he died inbetween 1942 and 1944 there's actually a good moive him during the nazi occupation of the neatherlands will see if I can find the name
@@LiamHickey2967 I think he meant the helmets were leftovers from WWI they look like the 1916 pattern stahlhelm, with the ventilation lugs on the sides. and a more flared brim and visor
Likewise during the war the Irish did have a sort of Home Guard that was set up with volunteers who would in the event of an invasion act as a guerrilla force. Despite being neutral during the war the threat of the war was very real in Ireland so they had to keep their military active at this time. A few more facts aircraft of both sides were often shot down or crashed within Ireland, and the Nazis did try to work with the IRA at the time sending in agents to evaluate the group. One scary fact was Adolf Eichmann, one of the architects of the Holocaust kept track of the number of Jews who lived in Ireland, which hinted that Ireland was on the minds of the Nazis during the war.
Ironically they didnt see any combat. They were just made of not so good metal so they dented easy. Even more ironic is that modern reproduction of German m16s probably have more protection than these irish vickers helmets
Uniforms were bought from Germany pre ww2 helmets look like stahlheims too and then a couple of clips of Irish Df sporting British helmets any one any info on this
The helmets were actually from the Vickers company in England, but yeah they were based off the stahlhelm. And I think around the time the Vickers helmet was used, artillery gunners would use the British style helmets. Eventually in 1941 the whole army changed to the British brody design
The uniforms aren't german The tunic is basically a British Service dress tunic from ww1 but with fancier pockets, a stand up collar and dyed a dark green The trousers are basically jodhpurs and I doubt they were trying to mimic germany. The boots are British im pretty sure, while they wore leather legging gaiters with them, probably not to try mimic Germany as they are not jackboots The webbing is literally British 1908 webbing from ww1, but dyed black. The rifle is British as is the gasmask bag The helmet is technically British, but based on the German m16 design The irish wanted a non british style helmet, so they were going to choose either between the French adrian helmet or the german helmet. They found that the german helmet was the best design, but Germany couldn't give them any due to the treaty of Versailles. So they asked the Vickers company in britain to make them some helmets based in the german design. They started to use british helmets by the time of 1940 or 41. They were neutral but there was still a chance Nazi Germany was going to invade the UK and possibly Ireland. So they didnt want to have German shaped helmets if they were going to face German troops. So the best option is the brodie as they would likely be fighting with british forces, if the invasion arrived
@@davehopkin9502 I get what you mean, but these helmets are actually british made. The helmet is called the m27 helmet but mostly called the Vickers helmet. So the Irish army was going to choose between the French Adrian and the german helmet and found the german one was better. They asked germany for helmets but they couldn't give the irish any due to the treaty of versailles. So the Irish asked the Vickers company in Britain to make them some based on the german helmet
People to this day slander Ireland for not fighting in WW2 (Even though plenty of Irish men died fighting for the British), but forget that Ireland had just been fighting the British 20 years prior. The crimes the Germans were committing were not known, so why would they have Ireland destroyed their country which was peaceful for the first time in 100s of years to fight and die with a country that they were still in the process of gaining independence from, still owned their land and had committed atrocities in their land only a couple of decades prior.
Id no idea the Irish had Lysanders...i knew about the vickers produced stalhelm copies ( sure had alot of dents in them though!) I know the rifles were british hand me downs too. But youd have expected the Irish to at least want to look more different from the british, considering the history...
The entire uniform is a British uniform basically. The tunic is a ww1 Service dress with fancier pockets and a stand up collar. The webbing is british, just dyed black, the rifle and the boots are british. The only things that are not British style is the jodhpur trousers, helmet and leather gaiters
Young people lead the Irish Defence Forces for various reasons. Most leave at the recruit stage because they cannot hack the initial training. In the case of the Naval Service, a lot of new recruits leave when they discover that there is NO mobile phone signal out in the North Atlantic, and the Naval Service does not offer free wi-fi. Qualified people leave because they can get far better money in the Irish or international private sector. And one reason why they can command very good salaries in the private sector is because Irish Defence Forces' training is known to be very, VERY, good indeed...
I think the things you thought were Hurricanes were Miles Magister trainer aircraft, a very low powered monoplane used by the RAF for elementary flying training, the IAC had a half dozen. The armoured cars shown in that clip were the whole lot, 5.
I love Ireland🍀 I have Irish blood. I am not a English troll! But damn...... it's a good thing Ireland didn't actually have to fight the Germans.....or the British!☠️
At best they sat on their arse and let the Allies defeat NAZI Germany. At worse they aided the Germans and provided shelter for war criminals after the war.
As they were truly between a rock and a hard place (Germany and Great Britain), Ireland faced a conundrum indeed. Two good reads are 'Ireland During the Second World War' by Ian S.Wood and 'Step Together, Ireland's Emergency Army' by MacCarron. Ireland had only recently achieved independence from Britain and anti-British feelings were still strong. Still, thousands of Irishmen joined the fight against Germany (and were punished for decades by the Irish government for doing so). Many thousands more (men and women) went to work in British factories.....some dieing during the Blitz. And think about this.... America tried to keep it's people out of the war, and did so until it was attacked. Spain, Turkey and others remained neutral. For the most part, Ireland kept itself out of a bloody war! Isn't that something to give them credit for?🍀🌴 My only issue is this...... Ireland's military is weak to say the least. They rely on the hated British to come to their rescue if attacked. I say this....quit freeloading off of others for your defense. Build a credible Irish Defense Force.🍀🌴
@@jacknelson8601 it’s a very mixed picture at an individual level. I grew up in a community in the U.K. with lots of Irish who fought in WW2 and could not return to Ireland. I had relatives of Irish heritage in Liverpool who told of how they were bombed due to those in Dublin who guided the bombers. De Valera was a NAZI sympathiser and National Socialist at heart. Eisenhower wanted to invade and take over the South of Ireland as he saw it as such a risk to American forces. Chirchill talked him out of it. I guess he didn’t want to get in to that mess again.
@@bob1784free oh really is that so what about the thousands of Irish men who fought for the British, the allied airmen we returned instead of interning in POW camps like we should have, the thousands of British refugees we took in or perhaps the weather data that stopped dday from being a failure after we gave the data it had to be postponed a day but no you'd rather bitch about how we did jump to help out the same country that brutalised, raped and murdered our people,tried to destroy our language, religion and culture and stole all of our natural resources for 800 years.
The Irish army wasn't formed until after the end of the 1922/3 civil war and saw no active service until it served as UN peacekeepers in the newly independent Congo from 1960. Apparently when a reporter asked their commander how he thought they'd do, their commander replied by saying they'd be fine because 'Weren't they and the combatants both from countries that had suffered from colonialism?' This optimistic attitude only lasted until the Congolese rebels hijacked a tanker full of Guinness destined for the Irish contingent. Strangely enough, all hell then broke loose. The story goes that one of the Micks was captured and murdered by a bunch of local tribesmen and when his dear old Mum back in the ould sod was informed that her son had been strung up by the Baloobas, she said 'Whoy did dey have to do dat? Could dey not have just hanged him by de neck as in de normal way of such t'ings?' ... and if you believe that, you'll believe anything.
Ironically the entire uniform is british aside from the helmets, trousers and leather gaiters. Technically the helmet is british but its not british style
British made helmets you fool. "Oh no, these people look like germans so they were not neutral" Don't ignore the fact that ireland helped allied airmen over into NI, while detaining german airmen and sailors
They are pattern of the Stallhelm 1916 as mentioned before they are Vickers made from manufacturing equipment seized after the First World War. Which possibly didn't go to well on the border with UK troops seeing!German helmets whilst at war with the Germans.
@@stevethomas5849 So the UK logically sold them off as they would be a liability for British forces ie. It was not an intricate plot and a nefarious deal by the Irish with the Germans as so many British commenters are actively pressing. I'm frankly sick of British accounts spamming Irish-related content with poison.
They performed out of their skins at the siege of Jaddotville. Ok not much since then but the Irish Army is made up of the same men who fought ( brilliantly ) for the Allies in WW1 and WW2 on land and in the air. The third highest ace of the Battle of Britain was an Irishman.
@@conlaiarla The "Annoying B'stard " character is a troll psycho all over Irish-related RU-vid content. RU-vid facilitate his anti-Irish hatred. He's one real weirdo. .🤣🤣🤣
Honestly i hate being british when half of the people are just fat gammons who support a monarchy full of pedos that dont care about the british people and hate literally anyone whos not british. Im putting together this uniform to teach the history of Ireland and I hope I piss off some gammon who thinks Ireland is just IRA potato land
They swapped them for British style helmets in 1941. If I recall correctly those helmets were first adopted in 1936 or 1937. They were also made by Vickers
And when did the Germans Ever harmed Ireland? I don't recall the Germans ever treating the Irish as second class citizens like the British did up to 1998, or causing millions to die. In fact the Germans helped stop the British oppression when they armed the volunteers during the 1916 rising. I would argue adopting the British helmet was the biggest mistake the Irish Free state army could of ever done to walk / trod in the way of the oppressor. But Alas, everyone still remembers how the Biggest empire, the world has ever seen in 1921 lost a war in their own backdoor to a bunch of Irish farmers, How all them WW1 veterans fled en-masse from the Rifles of the IRA.
The Irish government did allow RAF Sunderland flying-boats to overfly Derry in the battle of the Atlantic. To this day there are large concrete number along Ireland's west coast. Built to assist WW2 USAAF bombers which had wandered to far south on their journey to Britain.
De Valera, as president of Ireland, sent his condolences to Nazi Germany upon hearing of the death of Hitler. So lives the legacy of the Irish and who their army marches in step with.
Why because dev sent condolences 😂 Bit of a stretch Should we assume the queen's family were all Nazi supporters because her uncle was in Hitler government Or that 100 British nationals wore SS uniforms compared to two Irish men .. Get over yourself with you legacy's lol maybe to a few anti Irish twats like yourself At least 70000 southern Irish fought with the British against Hitler and 5000 lost their lives A remarkable number considering the British army were burning down towns and summerly executing people in the south only 20 years before but we won't talk about that will we 🙄
As a neutral nation it is politically procedural to offer sympathy when nation loses its political leader. The Irish government offered it's sympathy to the UK on the death of Winston Churchill a man who brought the Black and Tans to Ireland.
The Irish Free State which had only existed for 17 years when WW2 broke out unsurprisingly stayed neutral. However, it can never be accurately quantified how many men from the south (such as one of my uncles and one great uncle) enlisted in the British Army, but conservative estimates put it at around 100,000, and then you have Irish born men in US, Australian, Canadian and NZ armies.
De Valera wasn’t president at the time he was the Taoiseach (head of government). You can’t judge a nation from who their leader is. Also Churchill was the one who sent the notorious Black and Tans to Ireland.
Ireland under German occupation would’ve been like British occupation all over again. The IRA would’ve taken on the Nazis just like they did with the Black and Tans during the War of Independence (1919-1921). Edit: My theory is Dublin Castle (the former seat of British rule in Ireland) would’ve likely been used as HQ for the military administration for Nazi occupation in Ireland.
I love how the same ten British people are so obsessed with calling the Irish army weak because muh bad helmets that they forgot that they lost to Ireland when they controlled a quarter of the world
They have a tiny army, and are terribly equipped, it isn't a slight against the soldiers and personnel, but it's the truth, in terms of militarism the Irish have a small and weak military compared to countries like USA and Russia for example
@@You-were-seen-kid It's well equipped for what it's meant for (peacekeeping)they saved countless lives in Lebanon Somalia and Syria and the Irish Rangers are very well equipped
@@eddietuite732 they patrol Lebanon in soft skin vehicles, completely useless defence against a 7.62 round, again, under equipped. They may be well equipped to go patrolling and not receiving a contact, but when they do hit contact, they are under equipped
@@eddietuite732 well their original role was in fighting enemies of the Irish Free State, basically anti-treaty IRA and republicans. For which it did its job perfectly well of course.
@@You-were-seen-kid it's not small compared to our population when we were at recommended strenght and of roughly 9,000 if i remember correctly which was almost exactly the same percentage of people in our armed forces as the Us armed forced compared to the population of the country
Note to RU-vid Administration. This simple relatively innocent video has attracted a majority of anti-Irish ridiculing commentary from British troll accounts. All facilitated and sanctioned by RU-vid administrators. This trolling and poison from British accounts appears in the vast majority of Irish-related RU-vid content. It's disgusting.
Don't feed the trolls, there's a ratio generally 1 comment per 1,000 views in most videos, a tiny minority comment, fewer still are trolls, let them win their bedroom wars, it's all they'll achieve there.
The anti Irish trolls are a very small minority. Do not get bothered by them, they are just cockwombles with keyboards. Every country has them and the UK is no different.
If it makes you feel better im british and im putting together this uniform to teach the history of the free state and the defence forces. Ill probably piss off many fat gammons at 1940s events who think ireland is just IRA potato land
Shame they never made a move to fight the Nazis. Thankfully many Irishmen joined the International Brigade and fought Franco, while many others joined their British neighbours in the crusade against Hitler & Mussolini. Meanwhile, these guys sat in their barracks eating eggs and butter.
@@lagancider6153 In the British army the Irish Guards and the Irish Rangers are among the best fighting formations in the world. Many Irishmen died in the cause for freedom fighting against Nazism even if their political masters pretended otherwise. Those Irishmen who served were true heroes and deserve to be recognised as such.
