Hitler Looks West: An Irish Diplomat's Unwitting Role in the Plan to Alter Irish Neutrality

Abstract

Hitler Looks West:An Irish Diplomat's Unwitting Role in the Plan to Alter Irish Neutrality Barry Whelan (bio) Keywords Leopold Kerney, Éamon de Valera, Elizabeth 'Budge' Mulcahy, Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington, Helmut Clissman, Frank Ryan, Second World War, nazism, Germany, Spanish Civil War, Irish Republican Army, IRA, Abwehr, Wilhelm Canaris, Joseph Walshe, Edmund Weesenmayer On 24 August 1942 Ireland's diplomatic representative to Spain, Leopold Kerney, met a senior figure in the SS (Schutzstaffel), Dr Edmund Veesenmayer, in a Madrid café. The German had travelled under false papers on a special mission approved by the Reich Foreign Minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, to sound Kerney out on Ireland's willingness to alter its neutral policy in the war. Veesenmayer knew that Kerney was a close friend and long-time ally of the Taoiseach and Minister for External Affairs, Éamon de Valera, and that the Irish political leader was godfather to Kerney's youngest son. The Nazi leadership hoped that this close and direct connection to the Taoiseach could be decisive in convincing de Valera to alter Irish neutrality by aligning with Germany in return for a united Ireland. The role of the IRA in this plan as well as Irish assistance to Germany in its invasion of mainland Britain – scheduled for 1943 following victory on the eastern front – were all discussed at this meeting. The story of how this extraordinary encounter came about and the role played by a Sligo woman in shaping Hitler's wartime strategy in the West begins in Paris in 1934. Budge and Helmut Elizabeth 'Budge' Mulcahy was born on 5 August 1913 and grew up in her family home in Oakfield County Sligo. She attended University College Galway (UCG) studying languages before travelling to France to study in the Sorbonne and work as an au pair in Paris. It was there in 1934 that she met Leopold Kerney, then Commercial Secretary in the Irish legation. She worked as an au pair for the Kerney family. During her times minding the young children she taught them Irish, with mixed results: 'Budge Mulcahy has become a great friend of ours,' Kerney wrote to Hanna Sheehy Skeffington, 'and she has just come to live with us; she will, I hope, be as happy "au pair" with [End Page 62] us as anywhere else, and we are delighted to have her company. Raymonde, Micheline and myself are really the only students in her Irish "class". Budge is a tip-top teacher, and if we don't make progress the fault will not be hers.'1 The friendship continued over the years when the Kerney family travelled every summer to Sligo whilst on vacation to see Budge. Politically the Kerney and Mulcahy families were of a similar outlook. Both were republicans who had sided against the Treaty. As one of a number of republican diplomats reinstated into the service by de Valera, Kerney was happy to see the dismantling of the Treaty by constitutional means. He and Budge shared a similar outlook on this issue. It was also in the Mulcahy household that Kerney first met Frank Ryan, a former IRA fighter and leading left-wing political activist. Budge's friendship with Ryan would be another important factor in wartime efforts made by German Military Intelligence (Abwehr) to approach Kerney. The last point of interest in relation to Budge before the war was her acquaintance with Helmut Clissmann. He came to Ireland in 1934 to work in Trinity College Dublin (TCD) as part of a German student exchange programme (Deutsche Akademische Austauschdienst).2 In 1937 Kerney first met Helmut whilst visiting Budge in Sligo. Within a year Helmut and Budge were married. Now, on holiday trips to see Budge, Kerney was meeting both individuals, but what he did not know was Helmut's ties to militant republicans. Irish Army Intelligence (G2), Garda Crime and Security Branch (C3) and the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) all had pre-war files recording Helmut's meetings with active members of the IRA. Using the cover of his academic work, Helmut met men like Tom Barry at republican seminars, clubs, and commemorative events like the annual Wolfe Tone parade to Bodenstown Graveyard.3 British Security Service...