Second World War
During World War II, he was viewed as being pro-German by outside observers, especially in the United Kingdom. In June 1940, he met with Eduard Hempel, the German ambassador to Ireland. According to Hempel's report back to Berlin:
"The conversation, in which Walshe expressed great admiration for the German achievements, went off in a friendly way ... (Walshe) remarked that he hoped that the statement of the Leader in his interview with Weygand respecting his absence of intention to destroy the British Empire, did not mean the abandonment of Ireland."
On May 2, 1945, he and Taoiseach Éamon de Valera visited Hempel at home in Dún Laoghaire to express the Irish Government's official condolences on the suicide of Adolf Hitler. He retired to Rome and died in Cairo on the 6th February 1956.
Read more about this topic: Joseph Walshe
Famous quotes containing the words world and/or war:
“Being human signifies, for each one of us, belonging to a class, a society, a country, a continent and a civilization; and for us European earth-dwellers, the adventure played out in the heart of the New World signifies in the first place that it was not our world and that we bear responsibility for the crime of its destruction.”
—Claude Lévi-Strauss (b. 1908)
“They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”
—Bible: Hebrew Isaiah, 2:4.
The words reappear in Micah 4:3, and the reverse injunction is made in Joel 3:10 (”Beat your plowshares into swords ...”)