> With hindsight, we see the irish nationalist was less conflicted than Orwell had been willing to admit to himself. Or am I missing something important, given

> With hindsight, we see the irish nationalist was less conflicted than Orwell had been willing to admit to himself. Or am I missing something important, given that this was written in 1945 and not 1922? Ireland spent the Second World War neutral, albeit sympathetic to the Axis (Eamon de Valera famously mourned Hitler's death!); what Orwell was trying to say is that the only reason Ireland had any neutrality to preserve is the U.K. was implicitly defending it: had the Axis powers won the war Germany or Italy would have soon enough made Ireland a puppet state.