The Irishman who gave the D-Day go-ahead

The Normandy beach landings were deferred on the say-so of the Blacksod lighthouse keeper, and victory was assured, says Dan McCarthy

SEVENTY years ago yesterday, at 6am on June 5, 1944, off the coast of Normandy in France, 150,000 Allied troops prepared to launch the biggest seaborne invasion in the history of warfare. The objective was to defeat Hitler’s army in the north-east of France and push it back to Germany, since the drive on the Italian, eastern European, and north African fronts had begun to swing the outcome of the war in favour of the Allies.

The Normandy invasion was crucial to ending five years of war and an incomprehensible loss of life. The choice of day hinged not on the say-so of the joint commanders, generals Dwight D Eisenhower and Bernard Montgomery (brigade major in Cork in the war of Independence), but on the word of the softly-spoken Ted Sweeney, the keeper of Blacksod Lighthouse, in the Erris peninsula, Co Mayo.