Cork village to commemorate local priest who saved 6,500 Jews, POWs and airmen in Second World War
Lieutenant General John C.H. Lee presents the US Congressional Medal of Freedom to Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty (right) in Rome in 1946.
A Second World War hero who saved the lives of more than 6,500 Jews, prisoners-of-war and allied airmen is to be immortalised in the village in Co Cork where he was born.
Plans have been put in place to create a large mural, information board and plaque in the North Cork village of Kiskeam to commemorate the extraordinary life of Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty.
He became such a legend that he was portrayed by Gregory Peck in the Hollywood blockbuster "The Scarlet and The Black", which depicted O’Flaherty’s remarkable life — dicing with death as the Nazi SS chief in Rome, Lieutenant Colonel Herbert Kappler, (played by Christopher Plummer) homed in on his clandestine operations, determined to close them down and if necessary kill the priest in the process.
There is one memorable scene in the 1983-released film, based on JP Gallagher’s award-winning book "The Scarlet Pimpernel of the Vatican", which shows Kappler trying to goad O’Flaherty into crossing over the "yellow line" boundary of Vatican City territory, so he can be shot dead by a German sniper.
A committee formed in Kiskeam is finalising plans to commemorate its most famous son and expects to unveil the mural, commemorative plaque and information board — which will have an app link for additional information on the priest’s extraordinary life — in the summer.
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Unfortunately, O’Flaherty’s birthplace is long gone, so the organising subcommittee of the Kiskeam Development Association is going to paint the mural on the gable wall of the former post office in the village, which was run by his late first cousin.
Committee spokesman, Bernard Moynihan, said the plans are well advanced and when the commemorative artwork and information boards are unveiled, they will invite “a huge amount of his surviving relatives from all over the Duhallow region, Kerry and further afield to the event".
O’Flaherty was born in Kiskeam in 1898 and was ordained a priest in Rome in 1925. By the time the Germans took control of Italy in 1943, he was running a safehouse and escape route operation for Jews, and broadened his operation to include escaped British prisoners-of-war and allied airmen.
His extraordinary exploits earned him many accolades after the war, including being awarded the US Congressional Medal of Freedom, the rank of Commander of the British Empire (CBE) and the first and only Irishman to be inducted by the Vatican into its elite "Notary of the Holy Office".
Extraordinarily, when Kappler was jailed for war crimes by the Allies, O'Flaherty became his only visitor. For months at a time, he came to the prison to chat with his old enemy and in 1959 converted the former SS boss to Catholicism.
After the war O’Flaherty retired to live in Caherciveen, Co Kerry, where he died in 1963.
