God has no Country – Smock Alley – Review by Frank L.

Written and performed by Donal Courtney

Hugh O’Flaherty was born in County Cork in 1898. He was brought up, from the age of eleven, in a house on the Old Killarney Golf course and educated at the Presentation Monastery in the town during which time his talent for golf was perfected. In 1918 he attended Mungret College, Limerick to begin his studies for the priesthood, in 1922 he went to the Propaganda Fide College in Rome where he was ordained on 25th December 1925. Mussolini had come to power in 1922. He disliked intensely the British rule in Ireland and came to have a similar dislike of Mussolini’s dictatorship in Italy. However with the outbreak of war and the arrival of Germans into Italy his absolute belief that all humans, which included naturally Jews and anti-Fascists, have inherent rights was put to the test. From the Vatican he was able, with the help of other brave spirits, to organise safe houses and monasteries for those who were in dire need of them. He established “The Rome Escape Line” which by the end of the war had secured the safety of over 6,500 individuals.

This story, notwithstanding the Hollywood movie “The Scarlet and the Black” starring Gregory Peck and Christopher Plummer, is not as well known as it ought to be. This is partly due to the fact that Monsignor O’Flaherty, in his retirement in Kerry, chose not to talk about his exploits in Rome during the war. He died in Cahirciveen in 1963. On the fiftieth anniversary of his death a statue of him was erected in Killarney.

Donal Courtney’s upbringing in Killarney duplicated that of O’Flaherty. He, too, attended Mungret but as a lay pupil and he is similar in age now as O’Flaherty was during the war. He has spent a considerable time researching the Monsignor, as he is known in Kerry, and further time creating and perfecting the script. It is a story skilfully and passionately told by Courtney dressed in his soutane. Notwithstanding the life and death conditions under which the Monsignor was operating during the war humour is not far from the surface. His natural guile and inventiveness assisted him to remain operational through many close scrapes.  But what his driving force was is the right of every man and woman to be treated with respect by his fellow humans. This guiding principle he never lost as was demonstrated by his relationship with Colonel Herbert Kappler, his arch Nazi enemy in Rome, after the war when Kappler was on trial for his wartime activities.

The Boy’s School in Smock Alley was a suitable location as its pair of Gothic windows provided an aura of a religious institution when set against the clerical garb worn by Courtney. The performance of the monologue is enhanced by Courtney’s decision after each performance to be interviewed by an interlocutor and answer questions from the audience both as to the life of Hugh O’Flaherty but also to the theatrical decisions he, Courtney, made in creating “God has no Country”. The combination of the two makes for a memorable theatrical event about a man whose wartime work is a credit to humanity.

Performed by Donal Courtney
Directed by: Antoinette Duffy
Designed by: Sinead Purcell

Mon 7th Nov Michael O’Regan Irish Times Political Correspondent
Tue 8th Nov Patrick Sutton Director of the Gaiety School of Acting and Smock Alley Theatre
Wed 9th Nov Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh Legendary Broadcaster & Commentator
Thu 10th Nov Catherine O’Flaherty Documentary maker and grand-niece of Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty
Wed 16th Nov Muiris Crowley Actor (Pilgrim Hill, Smalltown, Can’t Cope Won’t Cope)

Special guest speakers for 20+ 21 January TBC