23 Facts About Hugh O'Flaherty

Hugh O'Flaherty was an Irish Catholic priest, a senior official of the Roman Curia and a significant figure in the Catholic resistance to Nazism.

Hugh O'Flaherty worked alongside and closely assisted Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani until 1960.

Hugh O'Flaherty returned to his native Ireland, where he died in 1963.

The family lived on the golf course, and James Hugh O'Flaherty worked there as a steward.

When Hugh O'Flaherty came in, he was a little older than most of the students, at about 20.

Hugh O'Flaherty's sponsor was the Bishop of Cape Town, Bernard Cornelius O'Riley, in whose diocese he expected to be posted after ordination, a major step for a young man who had never set foot outside of Munster.

When Hugh O'Flaherty was in Mungret, the Irish War for Independence was ongoing.

Hugh O'Flaherty was posted to Rome in 1922 to finish his studies and was ordained on 20 December 1925.

Hugh O'Flaherty never joined his diocese but he stayed to work for the Holy See and served as a Vatican diplomat in Egypt, Haiti, Santo Domingo, and Czechoslovakia.

That activity, which was carried out while he evaded repeated traps by Herbert Kappler and Pietro Koch, resulted in Hugh O'Flaherty being nicknamed "The Scarlet Pimpernel of the Vatican".

Some of them, remembering visits by Hugh O'Flaherty, reached Rome and asked him for help.

Hugh O'Flaherty recruited the help of other priests, two agents working for the Free French, Francois de Vial and Yves Debroise, communists and a Swiss count.

Hugh O'Flaherty demanded that German POWs be treated properly as well.

Hugh O'Flaherty took a plane to South Africa to inspect the conditions for Italian POWs and to Jerusalem to visit Jewish refugees.

Hugh O'Flaherty refused to use the lifetime pension that Italy had given to him.

Hugh O'Flaherty was the first Irishman named Notary of the Holy Office.

Hugh O'Flaherty regularly visited his old nemesis, Herbert Kappler, in prison month after month and was Kappler's only visitor.

In 1960, Hugh O'Flaherty suffered a serious stroke during Mass and was forced to return to Ireland.

Hugh O'Flaherty moved to Cahersiveen to live with his sister, at whose home he died on 30 October 1963, aged 65.

Hugh O'Flaherty was buried in the cemetery of the Daniel O'Connell Memorial Church in Cahersiveen.

Hugh O'Flaherty was portrayed by Gregory Peck in the 1983 television film The Scarlet and the Black, which follows the exploits of Hugh O'Flaherty from the German occupation of Rome to its liberation by the Allies.

Hugh O'Flaherty was the second principal character in a radio play by Robin Glendinning on Kappler's time seeking asylum in the Vatican, titled The Scarlet Pimpernel of the Vatican, which was first broadcast on 30 November 2006 on Radio 4, with Wolf Kahler as Kappler.

Courtney portrays Hugh O'Flaherty during the wartime years in German-occupied Rome; the story is told from Hugh O'Flaherty's point of view and is a study of the torment and difficulty in the decisions he undertook in his fight for justice.