Tag: Irish in wartime Italy
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Roman imbroglio – Italy and the Irish, 1939-1945
This website has been created to parallel the launch of ‘Roman imbroglio: Italy and the Irish during World War Two’. The book explores Ireland’s links to Italy in the period 1939-1945—in part using the rich, fascinating material left by the Irish minister to Rome, Michael MacWhite, but also by the Irish minister to the Vatican,…
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A Dublin cosmopolitan in the fascist lair
Dubliner Darina Laracy contibuted to the anti-fascist activities of one of Italy’s best-known writers during World War Two. Darina (Elisabeth) Laracy, born in March 1917, came from a comfortable middle-class family that lived at 42, Highfield Road in Rathgar. Laracy graduated with a first-class degree in history and politics from UCD in 1937, followed by…
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Dublin hideout for a Fascist big-wig
Member of the fascist Grand Council Edmondo Rossoni was exfiltrated from Rome to Dublin to avoid standing trial after the war. Born in 1884, Edmondo Rossoni had a political career that was typically contorted by Italian standards. Like Mussolini, he started out as a member of the socialist party. Yet, just like Mussolini, he changed…
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Fool of fortune—Stanislaus Joyce in wartime Italy
James Joyce’s brother found himself in the crosshairs of the fascist authorities both before and during the Second World War. In 1905, James Joyce was joined in Trieste by his younger brother, Stanislaus. For the next 10 years, Stanislaus played “Sancho Panchez…to James’ Don Quixote”, in the words of Richard Ellmann, until James left Trieste…
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Chaplain to the partisans
Rosminian priest Daniel Sloan faced prison (or worse) for his association with the Italian Resistance, prompting his escape against the mountains to Switzerland in 1944. Born in 1915, Daniel Sloan was an intrepid Newry native who joined the Institute of Charity (Rosminians) and went to Rome in 1938 to study theology. Ordained in Turin in…
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Chronology, 1938-1946
27 April 1938 – Michael MacWhite arrives in Rome as Irish Minister to the Quirinale. 23 July 1938 – Running street fights between Italian navy cadets and Irish anti-Fascists around O’Connell St., Dublin. 21 November 1938 – Vincenzo Berardis arrives in Dublin as Italian Minister to the Irish Free State. March 1939 – Eamon de…
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Dublin diplomat’s louche dealings
Charles Bewley moved freely between Berlin and Rome during the war in an effort to make himself useful to the Reich Charles Bewley was born in 1888 the son of a well-off Dublin Quaker family. After law studies in Oxford, he converted to Catholicism and espoused the cause of Irish independence. Bewley was appointed as…
Roman imbroglio 