Richard Doherty
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Richard Doherty is a County Londonderry-born military historian and author, educated at St. Columb's College, whose last book (co-authored by David Truesdale) Irish Men and Women in the Second World War, tells a great deal about the Irish neutrality during World War II.
Doherty gives Eamon de Valera credit for favouring Britain over Germany during the War behind the scenes, in particular by interning downed German flyers, while surreptitiously allowing Allied servicemen to cross the border back into Northern Ireland, which, as a part of the United Kingdom, was actively prosecuting the war effort. He also provides larger numbers of Irish volunteers for the war than are usually cited.[citation needed]
Doherty's father, J.J. Doherty, although a Catholic from County Tyrone (where there is little pro-British sentiment amongst the nationalist majority), died of wounds suffered during the war, as did several other relatives (uncles). Doherty's mother, the late Anna Coyle, came from a nationalist/republican background.
Doherty himself lived in danger for almost 30 years, given that he was a Royal Ulster Constabulary reservist and a staunch Unionist, because of his residence in Derry, one of the "hot spots" during the Troubles.
