FUGITIVE IRELAND

Albert Folens wasn't the only political refugee to arrive in Ireland after WWII. There were other Flemings fleeing the retribution of the Belgian state for having collaborated with the Germans during their occupation of their country. There was also a group of Bretons fleeing French retribution. What they had in common was that the state they belonged to had attempted over the years to suppress their Flemish and Breton cultures and languages. They succumbed to German promises to give their countries independence, or some degree of it, after the war if Germany won.

Fugitive Ireland (2009) is a serious book that looks at these fugitives and others and attempts to make sense of the Irish state's attitude to them.

The general conclusion, which seems reasonable to me, is that the state was in a bit of a quandary. It needed to assert its sovereignty as a newly emerged state but it didn't want to show itself as pro-Axis nor did it want to fall out with its nearest allies, the UK and the US. It was this sort of mix which led Dev to express his condolences to Herr Hempel on the death of Hitler. There was no book of condolences to sign. Daniel Leach explains this very well in the book.

Leach has done an enormous amount of research on all the individuals concerned and this is likely to stand as the definitive work on the subject.

He is, however, beholden to others for information much of the time and as a result he is over-hard on Albert Folens, presumably absorbing both information and attitude from the "informed journalist and author of the highest integrity" who seems to have made it his life's work to pursue Albert even beyond the grave.

This has led Leach to make a few uncalled for remarks and to his making unnecessary claims.

For example, after Folens' repatriation to Brussels from the Flemish Legion following a breakdown in his health, Leach says he opted for a less heroic form of collaboration. Folens didn't "opt". He had become emmeshed in the German military by accident and on repatriation to Brussels he was assigned to the Sicherheitsdienst.

Leach says that Folens and his wife followed Van Velthoven to Dublin a week later. Folens did but it took some months to arrange to get his wife over.

Leach says Folens studied for the priesthood. He studied for the De la Salle brothers' teaching order.

Leach says that if Folens, as he himself claimed, spent c.32 months in jail and arrived in Ireland in 1948, then his trial must have been in 1946 and not 1947 as he claimed. This is inaccurate. Folens spent a year and a half in jail before his trial which took place in November 1947.

He also refers to a statement in Folens' own book "Aiséirí Flóndrais" where Folens says he had been sentenced to death when he had not. He was sentenced to ten years imprisonment. This unfortunate statement has been used elsewhere also to criticise Folens and undermine his reliability. It is not clear how the statement came about. It could have been due to a misunderstanding between Folens and his translator which Folens did not pick up in proofing the book as he had little or no Irish. There was certainly a period before his trial when the prosecutor was looking for a "double death sentence" and that may have been on his mind and he was retailing what he might have said to the judge had he pronounced the death sentence. Whatever the reason for its appearance and despite its inaccuracy I really don't think it undermines Folens reliability and does not merit attention being drawn to it in this way.

Leach mentions Folens' claim to have been a "war criminal, honoris causa" in a Flemish publication. The statement is true but the context is what counts here. Folens is not claiming to be a war criminal. He is being critical of the journalist who interviewed him in 1985 and spent three hours trying to get him to admit to this. The TV programme on Folens, to which Leach appears to have been the historical advisor, went further and claimed that "honoris causa" meant "in a noble cause" while it simply means "honorific" and refers to a title bestowed on a person by another without the person having fulfilled the normal conditions for earning the precise title. I have dealt with this matter in another post on this blog.

To sum up then. This book is a significant piece of work and likely to remain the go to volume on this subject.

Get the book.

The book is available to readers in Europe here, and to those outside Europe, and particularly in the USA here