Hide and Seek: The Irish Priest in the Vatican who Defied the Nazi Command. The dramatic true story of rivalry and survival during WWII.

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The seminarian was also a fervent advocate of the Irish language. He maintained that it should be spoken as much as possible and argued that his fellow students should spend a few weeks of their holidays in an Irish-speaking district. The priests who taught them worked hard to promote the use of Ireland’s native tongue. One teacher wrote in the college journal that the boys should study Irish ‘to render you immune against the worst forms of Anglicization’.

Hugh and his classmates were also encouraged to discuss current affairs and O’Flaherty enjoyed the college’s debates. On one occasion, in the packed sports hall in front of teachers and students, Hugh’s team was assigned to speak for a motion which called for the prohibition of alcohol. O’Flaherty’s arguments helped to win the debate.

The trainee priest had some knowledge of abstinence. He was a teetotaller, having made a pledge to refrain from drinking or smoking when his brother Jim had fallen seriously ill with pneumonia. Should his brother regain his health, he vowed, he would never drink or smoke. Jim recovered and Hugh kept his promise.

O’Flaherty’s rhetorical skills were not confined to the discussion of social issues. In another debate he argued against the motion ‘The USA stands for the world’s peace’. The seminarian declared, ‘The American government is run by Freemasons and wealthy speculators and it is to their interest to have the European countries at war.’ It was an interesting argument for a man who, some twenty-five years later during the war, would find himself saving the lives of American servicemen.

Away from studying and debating, Mungret set great store by sport. The boys were encouraged to play cricket, rugby and soccer, but emphasis was placed on Gaelic sports too. However, it was golf that became O’Flaherty’s passion, and he would enjoy it for the rest of his life.

Since the college’s central purpose was to prepare young men for a life working overseas as priests, O’Flaherty and his friends spent much time wondering where in the world they would be sent. The much-admired map in the college’s study room was heavily smudged with the fingerprints of students speculating about their future. But matters closer to home were also occupying the thoughts of many in the dormitories of Mungret. Ireland was in turmoil as Britain’s rule was being challenged in a guerrilla war waged by the Irish Republican Army. As violence raged across the country it was impossible for the college authorities to shield their charges from the events of the outside world.

One morning in December 1920, with the Christmas holidays about to begin, the dining hall was filled with an air of happiness. However, within minutes all that would change. On cue, as he did every day, a college prefect who was circling the tables began to hand out the morning post. He passed O’Flaherty and gave him a letter. The mature student paused, opened the envelope, read the note inside, and then shared the dreadful news. ‘Chris Lucy has been shot,’ he told his friends. Lucy, a former Mungret boy, had joined the 1st Battalion of the IRA in County Cork and had been killed some weeks earlier. The boys listened in silence. Then their shock turned to anger.

This was the fourth time in recent months that they had heard how one of their friends had been killed by British forces. Raised teenage voices now echoed across the refectory. ‘One day we will sink the whole British Navy,’ one voice yelled defiantly. It was Hugh O’Flaherty who made this vow, for his political views were by now well formed.

Not long before he left Mungret, the young O’Flaherty’s dislike of Ireland’s rulers was reinforced by an encounter with them at first hand. In Limerick in March 1921 British soldiers shot dead the city’s mayor and former mayor. O’Flaherty and two classmates, Martin and Leo, decided to visit the men’s grieving families to pay their condolences. The three of them left the college grounds and walked into Limerick, unaware that every visit to the homes of the dead men was being monitored by British troops. To the watching eyes the three young seminarians were seen as IRA sympathizers. After they had met the families, O’Flaherty and his two friends set off for Mungret. As they passed the police barracks in William Street they were rapidly surrounded by members of the ‘Black and Tans’, a British unit of temporary police constables, so called because of the colours of their fatigues. Constantly on the lookout for IRA units, they had a fearsome reputation and had been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of civilians. ‘We will take a look at you in the Barracks,’ one of the constables told the students, who were then arrested and ordered inside the building.

The three young men insisted that they were students and explained that their visits had been simply pastoral. Convinced they were being misled, the ‘Tans’ continued their questioning. But luck was on the side of the students, because as they were being taken into the barracks a passer-by had spotted that they were from Mungret. The dean of the college was alerted, he contacted the police station to substantiate his students’ story, and they were released. For the young O’Flaherty the episode was another reminder of why he opposed British rule in Ireland. In the college journal he wrote of the affair in the understated manner which would become his trademark during his days in Rome. He recorded that some boys had ‘gone off to Limerick for the day’ and added coyly that ‘some had exciting experiences, arrests, escapes, etc’. As 1921 drew to a close and Ireland faced an uncertain future, Hugh O’Flaherty’s life became a little clearer. The young student heard that he was to be sent to Rome to continue his theological studies.