War hero cleric to get hometown commemoration

A statue is to be erected in Killarney commemorating Second World War hero Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, who risked his life to save over 6,500 Jewish people and British POWs from the Nazis in German-occupied Rome.

Known as the Scarlet Pimpernel of the Vatican, Hugh O’Flaherty was born in Kiskeam, Co Cork and brought up in Killarney. During his wartime posting in Rome as a Vatican diplomat, the Gestapo put a contract on his life.

However, after the war he befriended his jailed nemesis, Gestapo chief Herbert Kappler, who had put the contract on his life and O’Flaherty converted him to Catholicism.