Au contraire Moggy, many British merchant and navy vessels made safe harbour in Ireland. In fact there are a couple of cases when bad storms forced ships from opposing forces into harbours on our west coast and the Irish police (Garda Siochana) made regular patrols up and down the middle of the river (Shannon mainly) to ensure each vessels crew stayed on its own side of the waterway and there was no monkeybusiness. I have a photograph dated 1941 of three British merchantmen sitting in Wexford harbour on the South East corner of the island waiting for a storm to abate.
In addition, when ships were torpedoed off Ireland lifeboats were always despatched to help resuce the crews, whatever the nationality. And don’t forget, we lost a lot of merchantment too, despite having large tricolours painted on the hulls amidships and forward.
When British aircraft were forced to land here they were usually disassembled and loaded aboard a Queen Mary sent down from the North and spirited across the border. The same was true for most downed airmen (sans the QMs!), whether they arrived by plane or parachute. The same courtesy was not extended to the Germans.
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