The paths of great Resistance

A collection of real-life stories on forgotten Irish men and women who joined the Resistance and risked everything to fight the Nazi regime has been published in a new book co-authored by a Belturbet man.

John Morgan is a lawyer living in Dublin with a longstanding interest in the history of World War ll. A trustee of the Escape Lines Memorial Society (UK), and co-founder of the Basque Pyrenees Freedom Trails Association, he joined author and journalist Clodagh Finn in collating tales of bravery of those who took up arms and committed acts of sabotage, gathered intelligence or spread propaganda, and even sheltered fugitives or helped fleeing Jews.

Titled 'The Irish in the Resistance: The Untold Stories of the Ordinary Heroes who Resisted Hitler' and published by Gill, it all started, John explains, with a hike across the Pyrenees. The hike straddling the border with France and Spain followed the footsteps of the Resistance groups John has such a keen interest in, a clandestine pathway called 'escape lines' used to smuggle people out of Nazi-occupied Europe.

“They could be downed allied airmen or soldiers left behind after Dunkirk, or Jewish families trying to avoid the Holocaust. This was a big undertaking,” John explains. “These weren't trained people. They were civilians, but they would shelter people in safe houses, treat wounds, provide clothes and food, false papers, and do this in a way that didn't garner attention. And this could be in winter, at night, during terrible bad weather, so there was a lot of risk involved.”

Featured are the likes of Monica de Wichfeld (née Massy-Beresford) of Derrylin, condemned to death for her role in the Danish resistance where she sheltered RAF airmen and refugees. Most recently the Ulster History Circle honoured her work by unveiling a blue plaque at Kinawley Parish Church.

Or Robert Armstrong, born in Ballinalee but who worked as a gardener in Newbliss. He survived the First World War only to die in a German prison camp in the Second. Too old to fight, Armstrong joined the St Jacques evasion network, one of numerous networks set up to smuggle stranded Allied servicemen out of occupied Europe. Another featured is William 'Bill' McGrath from Clones, who joined the RAF, was shot down and badly injured, but who escaped over the Pyrenees, all the while helping a priest from Sligo on his way through Paris.

“So there are lots of people from our general area,” shares John, whose interest in the Irish connection was piqued by a fortunate encounter with a Belgian lady, who turns 102 next week, Nadine Dumon, who was keen to tell him about a “good friend” of hers, the late Catherine Crean.

Crean, an Irish governess born on Moore Street in Dublin, was arrested for helping the Belgian Resistance. Both she and Mrs Dumon were sent to the notorious Ravensbrück concentration camp, where the Irish woman sadly died.

“She got very emotional,” recalls John of their meeting. “She was telling me these stories, still as raw as they were 65-odd years ago, whenever I met her about 2009. So that started it for me, I'd never heard of [Crean], I couldn't believe it, so I set about trying to learn more and as I dug deeper more names came to the fore.”

Fifteen years of meticulous research and gathering stories of Irish people involved in the Resistance effort was strengthened through meeting his co-author Clodagh. John had previously contributed to a study by Dr David Murphy, a lecturer in military history and strategic studies at Maynooth University, who just so happens to live in Virginia. The pair arranged to erect a plaque at the Irish College in France in 2014 dedicated to the lives of all the Irish people involved in the French Resistance.

“She [Clodagh] said what I was hoping she'd say, 'Will we write it together?” remembers John. “The rest as they say is history.”

John is asked if his interest in such a weighty yet niche historial aspect so easily overlooked in the annals of history reflects on his own upbringing in a Border town?

He ruminates on this though for a moment before responding. John grew up in an era when the bombing occurred, and when cross-border smuggling was commonplace.

“Growing up in a place like Belturbet, there were very independent minded people there too. There was a streak in them. They made their minds up on what was right and what was wrong. It might've been easier not to, but their beliefs were more important than a comfortable life sometimes.”

John is eager to stress that in the vast majority of cases of people featured in his new book that there was little or no gain for their involvement in rallying against the Nazis.

“A few quid” covered basic expenses. “You want to nail that lie they were somehow opportunistic, there were of course one or two professional smugglers, but in the main these people got involved because they were moved to."

John never felt a weight of responsibility to ensure the accounts of Irish people involved in the Resistance are recorded. But he does feel it “important”.

“These are ordinary people doing extraordinary things. When does that not make a good story?”