The Vatican Pimpernel (3 page)

By then, the Government had secured an undertaking from the German Minister that his country's intention was not to violate Ireland's neutrality and above all not to invade Ireland. Minister Kiernan was careful to implement the Taoiseach's instruction to the letter. For example, in one of his reports back to the authorities in Dublin (27 March 1943), he comments:

The other senior Irish diplomat in Rome was Michael MacWhite, who was Minister at the Irish Embassy to the Italian Government. Michael MacWhite was born at Reenogreena near Glandore in West Cork on 8 May 1883. His father died in 1900 when Michael was seventeen. At that stage he came to Dublin to sit an examination for the British Civil Service and, during his visit to the city, met Arthur Griffith. They became lifelong friends. MacWhite was successful in the examination and moved to London to take up a position. At the age of eighteen he was Secretary of the Irish National Club in London and very well regarded in Irish circles there. He left London in the early years of the last century and did some travelling. He fought for Bulgaria in the first Balkan War in 1912, then joined the French Foreign Legion in 1913 and subsequently saw action in France, Greece and Turkey. He was wounded at Gallipoli and Macedonia and received the
Croix de Guerre
three times for his courage in battle. Following the war, he returned to Dublin and contacted his old friend Arthur Griffith with an offer to assist in the setting up of the new State. As a result, he became one of the founders of the Department of Foreign Affairs and saw service in various countries including the US. He was appointed to Rome in 1938. Clearly Arthur Griffith held Michael MacWhite in high esteem and indeed the evidence suggests he had plans to encourage the Corkman to become involved in active politics with a view to filling the role of Minister for External Affairs. Unfortunately, the premature death of Griffith in 1922 meant that these ideas never came to fruition.

Hugh O'Flaherty was born in February 1898. His father, James O'Flaherty, was from the Headford area of Galway and joined the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) in 1881 at the age of about nineteen. (He is listed as ‘Flaherty' in the records.) Having served for short periods in Longford and Mayo he moved to take up duty in Cork in 1885 where he served until 1897. During the latter years of his placement there he was assigned to the barracks at Glashykinlen. While there he met Margaret Murphy whose family farmed at Lisrobin, Kiskeam near Boherbue in County Cork. They got married in June 1897 and the following month they moved to live in Kerry as he had been transferred to a new posting in Tralee where he served for a number of years before being transferred subsequently to Killarney.

The tradition in the Murphy family, as indeed in many others at that time, was for the expectant mother to return to her maternal home so that her own mother could assist with the birth, particularly in the case of the first born. Accordingly, Hugh O'Flaherty was born in Cork. However, he would insist for the rest of his life that he was a Kerryman through and through (although he adopted a neutral position between Cork and Kerry, at least for a few minutes, when on one occasion he was honoured with the invitation to throw in the ball at a Munster Final).

James O'Flaherty resigned from the RIC in 1909 to take up the position of caretaker and caddy-master at the Killarney Golf Club which was then located at Deerpark on lands donated by Lord Kenmare, the major landlord in the area. The O'Flaherty family lived in the front lodge on the property, so essentially they had access to the golf course every day. This is where Hugh's lifelong love affair with the sport of golf commenced. He turned out to be fairly expert at the game, managing to get his handicap down to low single figures, close to scratch.

In 1913 Hugh found himself involved as a witness in a court case. Three women came to hold a meeting in Killarney as part of the suffragette movement. They applied for permission to use the Town Hall but were told it was not available. They got a similar response from Lord Kenmare when they applied for permission to use the Golf Clubhouse, so they ended up holding their campaign meeting in the open air. The day after the meeting, the Golf Clubhouse burned down. James O'Flaherty gave evidence that he went to bed shortly after 11.00 p. m. and when he woke at 5.00 a. m. the clubhouse was burning. Hugh gave evidence that the Club Secretary left at 6.30 p. m. the previous evening and there was no sign of any fire. He also said that he found a suffragette emblem on the premises. The club was awarded damages more or less to the full amount they sought in court.

At the age of fifteen Hugh secured a Junior Teaching Assistant post in the Presentation Brothers School there. Subsequently, he won a scholarship to teacher training but failed his Diploma examinations, most likely due to a bout of illness which interfered with his studies towards the end. However, during all of this time his ambition was to join the priesthood. He was concerned that the pursuit of this vocation would place additional financial hardship on the family and was nervous of approaching his father on the matter. He decided that the best course of action was to enlist the assistance of his only sister, Bride, who, it would seem, was ‘the apple of her father's eye'. He need not have worried. When Bride approached her father, his response was, ‘I would sell the house to make a priest of him.'

He successfully applied to Mungret College in Limerick which was an institution run by the Jesuit Order preparing young boys for the priesthood on the missions. He joined Mungret in 1918. While he made excellent progress in his studies, he was more noted for his prowess in the sports area: golf, handball, hurling, boxing and swimming were among his favourite pastimes.

This was a difficult period in Irish history and the young students in Mungret were well aware of the various atrocities being committed by the occupying British forces at that time. Indeed, O'Flaherty's father resigned from the RIC, like many of his colleagues, rather than find himself in confrontational situations with neighbours while fulfilling his duties. Hugh himself had a brush with the law in 1921. He and two of his colleagues had walked from Mungret into Limerick to pay their respects at the houses of two prominent citizens who had been shot the previous night. On their way home, all three were arrested and held, until released at the request of the Rector of Mungret College who had been tipped off that his students were in difficulty.

Later in 1921, O'Flaherty was sponsored by the religious authorities in Cape Town, South Africa, and sent to Rome to continue his studies. He was assigned to the Propaganda College whose objective was to prepare young men for work in the missions. During his time there he distinguished himself academically and he qualified in 1925. He was ordained by Cardinal van Rossum on 20 December 1925 and celebrated his first Mass the following day.

His correspondence home to a range of family members during these years highlights the characteristics and values which he brought to bear on his subsequent work. Particularly noteworthy are his humility, a gentle nature, care and concern for others (most particularly his parents), the strength of his vocation, a sense of humour and a willingness to help anyone – whether relative, friend or distant acquaintance – who might be visiting Rome. In addition of course he kept his family up to date on his developing career and was always anxious to hear news of home. For example, he wrote to his sister in July 1925 regarding his success in the examination for the Licentiate in Theology (L. S. T.):

He contrasts his success in the Degree examination and the consequent entitlement he now had to place three letters after his name with the importance of his vocation:

He then advises his sister that he was thinking of going on for a Doctorate in Theology.

The Rector he refers to is Monsignor Torquato Dini who was to prove a very valuable friend and mentor to the young Irishman over the next decade or so. He had obviously seen great potential in O'Flaherty and, as we can see from the letter, promoted him to work in the College as soon as he qualified and encouraged him to complete his further studies. During the next few years, O'Flaherty secured three Doctorates – in Divinity, Philosophy and Canon Law – and was promoted to the rank of Monsignor. Such a promotion so early in his career (he was, after all, still in his early thirties) underlines the high regard in which he was held in the Vatican.

Of course the Bishop in Cape Town, Dr O'Reilly, was anxious to secure the services of the priest his diocese had sponsored. In December of 1926 O'Flaherty reports back to his parents:

The following year he wrote directly to the Bishop confirming that he was available:

This sort of negotiation went on for a number of years. Monsignor Dini was in the strategic position of being able to assign places in the College for young students to various dioceses across the world. O'Flaherty reported back to his mother in May 1928 that although places were scarce the Bishop of Cape Town had met with some success.

As we have seen, living in Italy at that time was very interesting from a political point of view. O'Flaherty wrote back to his sister in June 1927 prompting her to tell her husband Chris Sheehan, who was a shopkeeper, about the latest regulations governing the retail trade and other matters in Rome.

The Monsignor had a lifelong interest in the latest gadgetry and by the summer of 1927 had secured the use of a typewriter and was also purchasing a machine from America for showing moving pictures. In a letter to his mother he reports:

It is clear that he played golf at every opportunity though it was an expensive game in the Italy of that time.