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Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty
By Mary Gaffney

October 30th is the 40th anniversary of the death of a truly extraordinary man - the genial, gentle priest, Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, known as the Pimpernel of the Vatican, who saved the lives of over 4,000 British and American soldiers and Jews from torture and death at the hands of the Gestapo in German-occupied Rome during World War II. And he did it without the knowledge of the Vatican.

 

 

Now, 40 years after his death, the Israeli Government is planning to award its highest honour on the Irish priest to whom the only memorials to date are the film, the Scarlet and the Black, starring Gregory Peck and a grove of trees in Killarney National Park. The Israelis are planting another tree in his honour at the Yad Vashem holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. The Holocaust Martyrs and Heroes Authority also plans to confer the title, “Righteous Among Nations” on Monsignor O’Flaherty, who is the first Irishman to receive this honour, in appreciation of having saved the lives of thousands of Rome’s Jews from the Holocaust.

 

In the past few weeks, I have made two pilgrimages in honour of his 40th anniversary. The first was to his grave in the grounds of the Daniel O’Connell Memorial Church in Caherciveen, Co. Kerry, where the simple headstone reads: In Loving Memory of Fr. Rev. Mgr. Hugh O’Flaherty born 28th February 1898, ordained 20th December 1925, died 30th October 1963. R.I.P.

 

My second pilgrimage was to Killarney National Park where a grove of Italian trees, planted in 1994, is the only memorial in Ireland to the Monsignor. Beside the trees is a brass plaque which reads, “To honour Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty (1898 - 1963). In Rome during World War II, he heroically served the cause of humanity.”

To mark the planting of the trees, Brendan Kennelly wrote a poem:

Hugh O’Flaherty’s Trees

There is a tree called freedom and it grows
Somewhere in the hearts of men,
Rain falls, ice freezes, wind blows,
The tree shivers, steadies itself again,
Steadies itself like Hugh O’Flaherty’s hand,
Guiding trapped and hunted people, day and night,
To what all hearts love and understand,
The tree of freedom upright in the light.

Mediterranean Palm, Italian Cypress, Holm Oak, Stone Pine;
A peaceful grove in honour of that man,
Commemorates all who struggle to be free.
The hurried world is a slave of time,
Wise men are victims of their shrewdest plans.

 

His story continues to inspire. As a young seminarian from Killarney, Hugh O’Flaherty was posted to Rome in 1922, the year Mussolini’s dictatorship began. By 1934, he was a Vatican Monsignor, deeply devoted to good works and to golf. He was in fact the amateur golfing champion of Italy and played golf regularly with Count Ciano, Mussolini’s son-in-law, and with ex King Alfonso of Spain. He was a champion boxer and a good handball player and hurler.

 

Monsignor O’Flaherty was also a skilled diplomat and served with distinction in such far-flung posts as Egypt, Haiti, San Domingo and Czechoslovakia, until he was recalled to Rome and appointed to the Holy Office. In the early war years, he toured Italian prisoner of war camps seeking out prisoners who had been declared “missing in action,” returning to Rome each night to reassure their families through Vatican Radio.

 

After the Allied forces landings and Italy’s capitulation in September 1943, thousands of POWs were let lose. Many reached Rome just as German troops seized it. Remembering the visits of the Monsignor to the POW camps, the ex prisoners turned to him for help.
He concealed more than 4,000 in convents, crowded flats and outlying farms. He secured aid from monks, nuns, communists, a Swiss Count and Free French secret service agents. He knew everyone and they all adored him.

 

The work was hazardous, requiring frequent trips outside the Vatican to co-ordinate with Roman friends in securing food and shelter. Disguised as a beggar, a postman, a nun, even a Nazi, the Monsignor operated the escape line without the knowledge or permission of his superiors and in the face of constant death threats. Chief of SS forces in Rome, SS Colonel Herbert Kappler, gave top priority to wiping out Monsignor O’Flaherty’s network but he could not capture the Irish Scarlet Pimpernel. An attempt to assassinate him in St. Peter’s failed.

 

The number of times he escaped either capture or death is legendary as he ranged through a city where the Gestapo were determined to shoot him on sight. When the Allies entered Rome in June 1944, more than 3,900 of those saved by
Monsignor O’Flaherty were still alive. Of those recaptured, tortured and murdered, no
man or woman betrayed the Pimpernel.

 

Colonel Kappler, the Monsignor’s arch enemy, was among those tried by the Allies for war crimes. He was sentenced to life and was incarcerated in Gaela Prison between Rome and Naples. In prison, the colonel’s only visitor was Monsignor O’Flaherty, the man who, friends say, had more compassion than anyone they had ever met. He and Kappler became friends and in March 1959, Kappler, the Nazi butcher of Rome, was baptised into the Catholic Church by the Monsignor.

 

Monsignor O’Flaherty was awarded the highest honours six countries could bestow on him, including the CBE and the US Medal of Freedom with Silver Palm. But when Italy’s first post-war government awarded him a life-time pension he refused to take one lira of it. He wanted nothing for himself. In 1960, Monsignor O’Flaherty suffered a stroke while saying Mass and returned to Ireland to live with his sister, Mrs. Bride Sheehan in Cahirciveen. He remained as active as possible, saying Mass in the local Church, going for drives and, in spite of the stroke, continuing to play golf.

 

In 1963, the BBC decided to devote a This is Your Life programme to the Monsignor, but, because of his poor health, it was decided to feature instead Colonel Sam Derry, who was in charge of the British forces in Rome during the Nazi regime. The Monsignor took part in the programme. He was filmed first in Cahirciveen and then, in spite of his failing health and his doctor’s warning not to travel, flew to London to appear on the programme which was seen by eight million viewers. He was the last guest on the show and when he walked slowly out on stage the studio erupted with clapping and crying.

 

Within months he was dead at the age of 65. His death was reported on page one of the New York Times, and taken up by the papers all over the world where his war-time activities were remembered under the heading “The Pimpernel is Dead.” The saintliness and heroism of Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, whose love and concern embraced everyone, irrespective of race or creed (“God has no country”, he would say) has remained unsung in Ireland for 40 years. But people continually visit his grave to seek his help in trouble. They know that the man who in life never turned his back on anyone will not, in death, fail them.

 

While the Monsignor’s family deeply appreciate the work done by the Bord of Works in having the trees planted in Killarney National Park and having the plaque erected, it would be a wonderful gesture if, in honour of the anniversary, the lettering on the plaque was repainted as at the moment it is impossible to read it. In fact, anyone not knowing the history of the grove would pass the plaque unaware of the wording.