The pro-axis underground in Ireland, 1939-1942

During the first half of the Second World War, a network of secretive ultra-right movements emerged in Ireland for the purpose of assisting the Axis cause. These groups had little contact with fascist organizations overseas, but rather were indigenous opressions of discontent with the perceived failure of Irish liberal democracy to address the country's political and economic problems. Numerically weak, poorly led, and ideologically unsophisticated, the pro-Axis underground made little progress in its subversive activities and was kept in check by the security services. Nonetheless, evidence suggests that a considerable, number of Irishmen and women on both sides of the Border shared its underlying objective of aligning Ireland with what they regarded as an emerging post-democratic world order.