How Catholic was Hitler?

[Pat Mustard]

Isn't it true that Catholic Ireland was something of an Axis Power, sort of similar to Spain?

No. Ireland* always operated under democratically elected governments after independence in 1922. Unless you're talking about the Protestant Statelet in Northern Ireland (1922-1969).

While the catholic church had (and arguably still has) too much influence over politics and society for a long time, every government in Ireland served at worst with a plurality consensus of the citizens of the country elected under a very democratic mandate (the single transferrable vote ensures that the make up of each Dáil, aside from slightly overrepresenting independents, accurately represents the percentage vote across the country). The two main parties have historically being clones of the UK Tories (with slight differences Fianna Fail traditionally supported small farmers, Fine Gael* supported big ones) while the half party (the Irish system has traditionally been called "two and half party system") was Labour the exact same as UK Labour except for more Irish language and adopting the Third Way slightly earlier (the Spring Tide of 1992).

While de Valera had some corperatist tendencies he, for the most part, supported democracy (well after getting his arse handed to him in the Civil War), and it was only in economic areas that the thought fascist ideas were worth looking at. And frankly he abandoned those ideas once he started seeing the shit going on in Mussolini's even more catholic Italy.

*Fine Gael's birth is the closest the country ever came to having a fascist party with the reverse take over of the much larger Cumann na nGaedhal party by the tiny Army Comrades Association of General Eoin O'Duffy (a policeman). Fortunately for Irish politics the politicians in Fine Gael took back the party inside of six months and the fascists tried to organise a derisory column to support Franco (so derisory he sent them home in ignomony).