Hide and Seek: The Irish Priest in the Vatican who Defied the Nazi Command. The dramatic true story of rivalry and survival during WWII.

In the autumn of 1939, as Britain and France went to war with Germany, Kappler’s travels continued and he found himself in Rome, working as a police attaché at the German embassy. He had been selected to join a new wave of staff who would work out of German diplomatic missions. Kappler replaced Dr Theodor Helmerking, whose time in Rome had been regarded by senior figures in German intelligence as disappointing because he was not interested in the work. By contrast, Kappler was viewed as both ambitious and clever and his superiors in Berlin were convinced his arrival in Rome would mark a noticeable change. His job was to advise the German Ambassador to Italy, work with the local Fascist police force, and organize intelligence and espionage operations in the city.

Across the city, the man who would become Kappler’s wartime adversary was also settling into a new job. Hugh O’Flaherty had been away from Rome for a few years, posted to Haiti and Czechoslovakia, but by 1938 he was once again working in the Vatican. His title was Scrittore, or Writer, in the Holy Office, his task being to examine the Church’s teachings and important doctrinal matters. He was delighted with his new role.

O’Flaherty’s journey to Rome had begun in the rugged countryside of rural Ireland. Born in Cork in February 1898, he spent the early years of his life in Killarney, in County Kerry, where his father was a policeman with the Royal Irish Constabulary. The eldest of four children, Hugh, like his brothers Jim and Neil, went to the town’s Monastery School, which was run by the Presentation Brothers, a traditional Catholic body with the twin values of faith and discipline at its core.

The school’s religious ethos was to have a lasting and life-changing effect on the young Hugh. From an early age he made no secret of his wish to become a priest. However, his path to taking holy orders was not a straightforward one. At the young age of 15 he secured a junior teaching post and taught for three years. Originally Hugh had thought the teaching profession would satisfy him, but he clearly wanted to do something else with his life. In his heart he always knew he wanted to be a priest, and so, despite the fact that he was older than most other applicants, he applied to Mungret College.

The former agricultural school enjoyed an idyllic setting, on farmland surrounded by woods south of the River Shannon, some three miles from the city of Limerick. Formally known as the Apostolic School of the Sacred Heart, the college was run by the Jesuit Order. There were two schools on the site: a secondary school for young boys and an apostolic boarding college for older students. O’Flaherty joined the older boys, who, once their studies were complete, were expected to travel abroad to spread God’s word as missionaries. Even though Hugh had no Latin and was by now 20, two years older than the upper age limit, he was offered a place.

In the late summer of 1918, as the Great War entered its final months, Hugh O’Flaherty stood at the grand columned entrance of Mungret College clutching his bags and books. His new home was an impressive sight. The handsome stone building housed a chapel, dormitories and classrooms with views onto fields where cattle grazed. Within days he was out exploring the rolling countryside. Nature walks were part of college life and every month the boys went out to enjoy the area’s beauty spots.

The new entrant clearly relished his studies and soon established a reputation as a creative thinker. The young O’Flaherty wrote an award-winning essay entitled ‘The Best Means of Spreading Irish Culture’, speaking with admiration of those who had died for the ideal of a Gaelic Ireland. He argued that there were two ‘beacon lights’ which offered the way forward, ‘Catholicity and Nationality’. To him it was already clear that ‘Catholicity makes us pure-minded, charitable, truthful and generous’.

At the same time, the growth of modern music and dance exercised the young student’s mind. He proclaimed that much of it was ‘degenerating’ and ‘demoralizing’ and it should be banned because the dances were the ‘unchristian productions of African savages’.

As in many Jesuit schools, the regime at Mungret was strict. Boys who stepped out of line received corporal punishment. Those found guilty of an offence were issued with a docket and told to report to a priest, who would administer the appropriate number of slaps. In this structured and morally strict environment O’Flaherty blossomed personally and academically. He studied philosophy, ecclesiastical history, theology and scripture, and often came top of the class. He also became proficient in Latin.

The seminarian was also a fervent advocate of the Irish language. He maintained that it should be spoken as much as possible and argued that his fellow students should spend a few weeks of their holidays in an Irish-speaking district. The priests who taught them worked hard to promote the use of Ireland’s native tongue. One teacher wrote in the college journal that the boys should study Irish ‘to render you immune against the worst forms of Anglicization’.

Hugh and his classmates were also encouraged to discuss current affairs and O’Flaherty enjoyed the college’s debates. On one occasion, in the packed sports hall in front of teachers and students, Hugh’s team was assigned to speak for a motion which called for the prohibition of alcohol. O’Flaherty’s arguments helped to win the debate.

The trainee priest had some knowledge of abstinence. He was a teetotaller, having made a pledge to refrain from drinking or smoking when his brother Jim had fallen seriously ill with pneumonia. Should his brother regain his health, he vowed, he would never drink or smoke. Jim recovered and Hugh kept his promise.

O’Flaherty’s rhetorical skills were not confined to the discussion of social issues. In another debate he argued against the motion ‘The USA stands for the world’s peace’. The seminarian declared, ‘The American government is run by Freemasons and wealthy speculators and it is to their interest to have the European countries at war.’ It was an interesting argument for a man who, some twenty-five years later during the war, would find himself saving the lives of American servicemen.

Away from studying and debating, Mungret set great store by sport. The boys were encouraged to play cricket, rugby and soccer, but emphasis was placed on Gaelic sports too. However, it was golf that became O’Flaherty’s passion, and he would enjoy it for the rest of his life.

Since the college’s central purpose was to prepare young men for a life working overseas as priests, O’Flaherty and his friends spent much time wondering where in the world they would be sent. The much-admired map in the college’s study room was heavily smudged with the fingerprints of students speculating about their future. But matters closer to home were also occupying the thoughts of many in the dormitories of Mungret. Ireland was in turmoil as Britain’s rule was being challenged in a guerrilla war waged by the Irish Republican Army. As violence raged across the country it was impossible for the college authorities to shield their charges from the events of the outside world.

One morning in December 1920, with the Christmas holidays about to begin, the dining hall was filled with an air of happiness. However, within minutes all that would change. On cue, as he did every day, a college prefect who was circling the tables began to hand out the morning post. He passed O’Flaherty and gave him a letter. The mature student paused, opened the envelope, read the note inside, and then shared the dreadful news. ‘Chris Lucy has been shot,’ he told his friends. Lucy, a former Mungret boy, had joined the 1st Battalion of the IRA in County Cork and had been killed some weeks earlier. The boys listened in silence. Then their shock turned to anger.

This was the fourth time in recent months that they had heard how one of their friends had been killed by British forces. Raised teenage voices now echoed across the refectory. ‘One day we will sink the whole British Navy,’ one voice yelled defiantly. It was Hugh O’Flaherty who made this vow, for his political views were by now well formed.

Not long before he left Mungret, the young O’Flaherty’s dislike of Ireland’s rulers was reinforced by an encounter with them at first hand. In Limerick in March 1921 British soldiers shot dead the city’s mayor and former mayor. O’Flaherty and two classmates, Martin and Leo, decided to visit the men’s grieving families to pay their condolences. The three of them left the college grounds and walked into Limerick, unaware that every visit to the homes of the dead men was being monitored by British troops. To the watching eyes the three young seminarians were seen as IRA sympathizers. After they had met the families, O’Flaherty and his two friends set off for Mungret. As they passed the police barracks in William Street they were rapidly surrounded by members of the ‘Black and Tans’, a British unit of temporary police constables, so called because of the colours of their fatigues. Constantly on the lookout for IRA units, they had a fearsome reputation and had been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of civilians. ‘We will take a look at you in the Barracks,’ one of the constables told the students, who were then arrested and ordered inside the building.

The three young men insisted that they were students and explained that their visits had been simply pastoral. Convinced they were being misled, the ‘Tans’ continued their questioning. But luck was on the side of the students, because as they were being taken into the barracks a passer-by had spotted that they were from Mungret. The dean of the college was alerted, he contacted the police station to substantiate his students’ story, and they were released. For the young O’Flaherty the episode was another reminder of why he opposed British rule in Ireland. In the college journal he wrote of the affair in the understated manner which would become his trademark during his days in Rome. He recorded that some boys had ‘gone off to Limerick for the day’ and added coyly that ‘some had exciting experiences, arrests, escapes, etc’. As 1921 drew to a close and Ireland faced an uncertain future, Hugh O’Flaherty’s life became a little clearer. The young student heard that he was to be sent to Rome to continue his theological studies.

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