The Vatican Pimpernel Read Online Free

they are not intended and might have serious repercussions on the results of the policy of neutrality which the Government has pursued as the only means of preserving the independence of the nation and the lives of the people … The Taoiseach requires from all the strictest adherence to the foregoing instruction. 6
    (14 June 1941)
    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:
    I have met, socially, the Diplomats of the Axis and Allied Countries in about equal measure and have been careful to avoid giving any impression of stressing social acquaintance in any direction. 7
    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.

2
A Young Priest in The Vatican
    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