Hitler's 'Irish escape plan'

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British Intelligence claimed Adolf Hitler and his top aides planned to hide in Ireland at the end of World War Two.

That was one of the more outrageous hoaxes cooked up by British Intelligence, according to a new book.

It lifts the lid on British "black propaganda" efforts to undermine neutral Ireland during World War Two.

"It was to be a 'blood libel' on Ireland," said Eunan O'Halpin, Bank of Ireland Professor of Contemporary Irish History at Trinity College Dublin.

"A Northern Ireland general attached to the Special Operations Executive was quite attached to the idea but it was shot down at the highest political level."

PARACHUTED

His book, Spying on Ireland: British Intelligence and Irish Neutrality during the Second World War, also tells the story of Joseph Lenihan, uncle of the late Brian Lenihan and Mary O'Rourke.

Joseph was parachuted into Ireland in July, 1941, from a German aircraft to act as a German spy, but he handed himself over to the British authorities, who then tried to use him as a 'double agent', but the deception did not work.

Prof O'Halpin said he has examined Mr Lenihan's MI5 file. He claimed to have fought in China against the Japanese and to have been in the American Army and was very proud of being an Irish republican.

The British also had a controlling agent in the American Irish Defence Association, which tried to spread the idea of giving Irish ports back to the British among Irish Americans.

And the hoary old story of how German U-boats refuelled in secret bays in the West of Ireland was first believed by the British Admiralty, and is still bandied about to this day.

"It was pure baloney," Prof O'Halpin said.

It also details how Ireland both interested and irritated Churchill during the war. His top aides tended to keep news of Ireland away from him because he would "go off the deep end," he said.

Irish neutrality during World War Two presented Britain with "significant" challenges to its security, according to the book.

The book analyses the extent of British knowledge of Axis (German, Italian and Japanese) diplomatic missions in Ireland and shows the crucial role of diplomatic code breaking in shaping British policy.

"Drawing heavily on British and American intelligence records -- many disclosed here for the first time -- Eunan O'Halpin casts fresh light on British activities in Ireland and on the significance of both espionage and intelligence co-operation for developing wider relations between the two countries," according to a spokesperson for Oxford University Press.

"It constitutes essential reading for students and scholars of modern Irish and British history, as well as those interested in the Second World War and the history of intelligence agencies," she said.

The book includes chapters on Britain's 'Irish security problem', from 1922 to 1939, and the 'Phoney war, Phoney spies' from September 1939 to April 1940.

It also deals with the invasion fears of May 1940 to June 1941, when the Irish Army prepared plans to deal with a German -- or British/American -- invasion.

There is also a chapter on the preparation for Overlord, the D-Day invasion of Normandy, when tens of thousands of US soldiers trained in Northern Ireland.

The book details the British obsession with possible "leaks" from the German Legation in Dublin about the coming invasion.

Mrs Justice Susan Denham will speak at the launch of the new book in Trinity College this evening.

Spying on Ireland: British Intelligence and Irish Neutrality during the Second World War (Oxford Univeristy Press, £30 sterling).

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Lenihans' uncle revealed as a cranky spy for Nazis and MI5

HE was a cunning double agent who spied for both the Nazis and Britain's MI5. And he was also Fianna Fail TD Mary O'Rourke's uncle.

A new book has shed light on the life of Joseph Lenihan, also a grand uncle of ministers Brian and Conor, and his remarkable wartime exploits.

Historians have known for some time Lenihan was a spy, a so-called black sheep of the Athlone-based family who took the British shilling.

But until now nothing has been known about what Lenihan, codenamed "Basket" by his MI5 handlers, actually did.

"I grew up on the legend of my uncle Joe," said his niece Mary O'Rourke last night. "He was by all accounts amazing."

Now it has emerged that far from being a stooge to his spy masters, agent Basket was in fact hugely uncooperative.

He regularly told his handlers how much he despised Britain and drove them to distraction by refusing to carry out simple instructions.

Lenihan's story is included in 'Spying on Ireland' by contemporary history Professor Eunan O'Halpin of Trinity College.

Records

Published today by Oxford University Press, it draws on intelligence records -- many disclosed for the first time -- to chart the work of secret agencies in Ireland during the war.

Prof O'Halpin was last year given access by the British government to Lenihan's secret file which had until now remained classified.

The records show Lenihan was so unreliable, MI5 tried to pay him £50 to leave their service, promising more cash after the war if he managed to stay out of trouble.

But the file shows Lenihan angrily refused the cash and tore up the deal he had agreed with MI5 to stay working for them in England.

Prof O'Halpin said the new records served to rehabilitate Lenihan's reputation as the family's black sheep who had brought shame by spying for Britain.

"For the Lenihans this will come as a big relief," he told the Irish Independent.

"On one hand the British thought he was brilliant with a great memory for faces and places.

"On the other hand he didn't follow their direction at all when it came to the work he was supposed to be doing for them in Ireland. And he never spent the money they gave him."

Lenihan, a customs officer, initially disappeared from Ireland sometime in the 1930s after serving a jail sentence for assisting smuggling.

He claimed to have fought against the Japanese in China but he turned up as a potato digger in Jersey when the Germans invaded in 1940.

According to the MI5 file he told a British officer he had escaped Jersey in a boat after ambushing a German soldier.

But instead of landing in England, strong winds blew him to France where he was picked up by the Germans who persuaded him to spy on Britain.

In 1941, Lenihan was dropped by parachute into Co Meath with orders to provide the Nazis with weather reports from the Sligo coastal area and updates on bomb damage in Britain. Instead he made his way to Belfast where he offered his services to the British. He was recruited after convincing MI5 he hated the Nazis more than the British.

Moved to London, he became part of MI5's "double-cross" network where he fed the Germans false information. But the British tired of Lenihan's open hostility towards them and his frequent refusal to follow orders to the letter.

"He was a wideboy but he had plenty of moral courage," said Prof O'Halpin. "There's no doubt the British thought he had a brilliant mind."

Joseph Lenihan died in Manchester in 1976.