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Róisín Ní Mheara whose given name was Phyllis James was a woman of many identities. She played a minor role in Berlin during the Second World War with the Nazi propaganda radio network, but more importantly should be known for her writing and work after the war as a Nazi apologist and Holocaust denier. Her own chosen identity as an Irish language scholar and cultural activist raises questions about the adoption of ‘oppressed’ identities as a foil for the worst bigotry possible, as well as the ability of Irish nationalists of various stripes to brush fascist tendencies under the carpet as part of an anti-British outlook.

Ní Mheara was born in England in 1918 and put up for adoption shortly afterwards. Her adoptive parents were aging members of the wealthy upper-class, her father being General Sir Ian Hamilton, a decorated member of numerous British imperial campaigns in Sudan, Burma and most notably South Africa during the Boer War. Hamilton rose through the top of the army command, and led Allied troops at the battle of Gallipoli during the First World War. After a hugely ‘successful’ career Gallipoli was a disaster and he retired in 1920. Despite his war hero status (Churchill, a family friend, had even penned a book about him in 1900), by the 1930’s Hamilton had become a vocal supporter of appeasement, along with other high-profile members of British high society. Hamilton believed in Hitler’s plans for European peace and as head of the British Legion travelled to Bechtesgaden to meet Hitler and pose for photographs in August 1938. Hamilton flew home to London in the Führer’s personal plane. Ní Mheara’s adopted mother was Jean Muir, daughter of the obscenely wealthy tea-baron John Muir.

Ní Mheara’s relationship with her parents seems distant, as was common among the upper-class at the time. Her father was 65 at the time of her birth and her mother 57. The marriage had been childless until the adoption of Róisín and another baby after the First World War. Ní Mheara began spending time in Germany as a schoolgirl in 1933, firstly at a finishing school in Munich, and later made several trips to Germany and Austria before the war, working and studying as an actor. Her passion for acting spilled into her real life and the boundaries became blurred. She enjoyed living in the Third Reich, and was excited by the rise of Hitler to power. Despite having no definite connection to Ireland, over the course of several decades Ní Mheara became obsessed with the island and its culture and reinvented herself as Irish. In her autobiography she claimed her biological father was an Irish soldier in the British Army. While living in Berlin, she repeatedly referred to herself as ‘neutral Irish’ perhaps to avoid charges of treason. This adoption of an Irish identity may have served several purposes, as noted, an Irish person working for the Nazis was in less danger than a British person, with whom Germany was at war with. In addition, as a rebellious gesture towards upper class British parents, identifying with the first part of the empire to break away would have been a significant ‘fuck you’ to her parents steeped in the imperial riches of the British Empire’s corporations and armies. (This may not be relevant for her mother who appears to have sympathies for Irish Home Rule and attended Roger Casement's trial in 1916) Thirdly, identifying as a minority has sometimes been adopted as a cover for fascist politics, adopting a faux anti-imperialism as was not uncommon among Irish, Breton, Flemish and other national minorities in Europe during the twentieth century who aligned themselves with fascism in opposition to their own local oppressors.

Prior to the war Ní Mheara ‘s contact with Ireland consisted of a week-long visit in 1937. The trip had a strong influence on her and she adopted Irish style anti-British talking points from then on. In Berlin in 1940 Ní Mheara, like others, found herself without an income and played up her usefulness to the authorities in return for financial survival. By now using the name Nora O’Mara, she was recruited by Kurt Haller, an Abwehr II officer who assisted Edmund Veesenmayer and dealt with many of the Irish contacts for the Nazis. (Later on in the 1950’s Haller made several trips to Ireland and included visits to Jim O’Donovan and Francis Stuart to thank them for their service to Nazi Germany.) Ní Mheara managed to pass herself off to him as a source for Irish affairs and began her paid career with the Nazi regime.

Ní Mheara was issued a ‘stateless’ passport and introduced to Professor Fromme, Hermann Goertz, and Francis Stuart. Fromme was an archaeologist with a strong interest in Ireland and liaised with various Irish contacts on behalf of the Nazis throughout the war. Fromme had introduced Goertz to Stuart and the two were getting acquainted prior to his spying mission to Ireland where he would liaise with Stuart’s wife Isolde Gonne, her mother Maud Gonne and various other Irish nationalists. Ní Mheara was pregnant at the time, apparently from a relationship with a Ukrainian man who had left the city, and was given a job as Goertz’s secretary. After Goertz’s departure, Stuart and Ní Mheara became lovers for about a year and Stuart arranged for Ní Mheara to work with him at Irland-Redaktion, the Irish part of the large network of foreign language Nazi radio stations run out of the Rundfunkhaus. In July 1940 Ní Mheara, Stuart, Professor Fromme, IRA man Frank Ryan, and Nazi operative Helmut Clissmann who had an Irish wife, made an appearance at an Irish POW camp where they were part of an effort to recruit Irish soldiers captured fighting with the British Army to the German side.

Prior to working at the radio station Ní Mheara worked with Stuart’s translator, Ruth Weiland, to publish her first known work, a piece on Padraig Pearse as part of a collection of essays on Irish freedom fighters called Irische Feiheitskämpfer which had an introduction by Stuart. Fromme and another academic with strong Irish connections, Ludwig Mühlhausen, also contributed to the collection. As part of her Irish charade, Ní Mheara began taking Irish language lessons from an Irish man in Berlin who had been working as a teacher. She had a gift for the language and picked it up quickly, a skill she would go on to expand upon, becoming an expert not only in modern Irish but also its medieval variant.
Ní Mheara appeared occasionally on-air for Redaktion. Her account of the operation in her autobiography labels the Rundfunkhaus radio centre a nest of Jews and spies. She reserves praise for William Joyce, aka Lord Haw-Haw and the American voice of Axis Sally, Mildred Giddens, both of whom were true believers of the Nazi cause and notorious antisemitic propagandists.

At the end of the war, Ní Mheara, pregnant with her second child, appeared in Paris and was arrested by British intelligence. Initially confined to a refugee camp, her high-level family connections helped in ensuring no charges were brought against her. It is unclear how she supported herself, she had been disinherited by Ian Hamilton, but she appears to have begun dividing her time between Ireland and Germany around this time. her autobiography describes visits to Ireland in the late 40’s and 50’s and she also appears to have acted in Frankfurt and Munich. Ní Mheara published a poem in Dublin Magazine in 1955 and worked at RTE on some radio plays around this time.

As Ní Mheara’s visits to Ireland became more frequent, she established more links with Irish language activities in the west of Ireland, and adopted another alias, using the surname Vinard and posing as a Swiss widow. She lived in Galway between 1969 and 1974 and established a cultural academy, An Durlas, in Galway city that included a nursery, theatre and classrooms. An Durlas was sold to the Gaelic League in 1973. A second project that Ní Mheara initiated on Inishmaan was called the Museum of the Islands which opened in August 1973. Ní Mheara stayed on Inishmaan for about a year before handing the museum over to the islanders and returning to Germany. These projects were significant and would have earned her a lot of respect among the Irish language activists of the time.

Putting her language skills to use, Ní Mheara worked on a translation of Buile Shuibhne or Mad Sweeney from Middle Irish into German (Published as Der König der Bäume, 1985) and established a friendship during the curse of the work with Gaelic scholar Tomás Ó Fiaich. Ó Fiaich was Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland from 1977 until his death in 1990. She later worked with Ó Fiaich on his Gaelscrínte san Eoraip or Irish Shrines in Europe which detailed Irish Christian missions to Europe. After Ó Fiaich’s death she published a follow-up titled In Search of Irish Saints (1994) and organised the Cardinal’s papers for his memorial museum in Armagh. Ní Mheara also organised a large number of Celtic cultural events in Germany and Austria throughout the 1980s as well as participating in Irish arts projects.

Between 1977 and 1980 Ní Mheara wrote a regular column ‘Letter From Europe’ for the Irish language weekly Inniu. The paper had been founded in 1943 by a cultural action group called Glúin na Buaidhe (Generation of Victory) which had split from Gearoid Ó Cuinnegáin and Craobh na hAiséirighe due to his extremist political views. Shortly after the split Ó Cuinnegáin launched an overtly fascist political party Ailtirí na hAisérighe (Architects of the Resurrection) which went on to gain some electoral success in local elections. Ní Mheara befriended Glúin founder Prionsias Mac an Bheatha. Inniu’s editor was Tarlach O hUaid, who had been born Augustus Hood into a Unionist and Methodist family in London. O hUaid rejected his upbringing and became an Irish nationalist activist, IRA member, Altiri na hAiseirighe member and editor of the IRA paper War News in the 1930’s which had made a habit of publishing pro-Nazi content. It was in her column in Inniu that Ní Mheara began writing Nazi apologism and Holocaust denial. Based in Germany, the columns often covered German affairs and included praise of former Nazis such as Rudolph Hess or Herbert Kappler, head of the Sicherheitsdienst. A column from 13 January 1978 is a classic piece of Holocaust denial. In it Ní Mheara claims that only 7,000 Jews died at Bergen-Belsen and that most died of disease caused by Allied bombing and after Allied troops had taken control of the camp. The true figure is closer to 70,000 Jews and Soviet prisoners murdered by Nazi prison guards where torture and random killings were the norm. The victims included Anne Frank and her sister. Ní Mheara’s column also derided modern art and culture, along with communism and socialism, and adopts an overly romantic praise for Celtic nations.

Ní Mheara remained an unrepentant Nazi propagandist for the rest of her life, justifying and downplaying the Holocaust. In 1991 Ní Mheara published her autobiography in Irish, titled Cé hÍ Seo Amuigh? (Who Is She Outside?) which received grant aid from the Irish state (a standard procedure for many Irish language books) and was published by a prominent Irish language publisher Coiscéim. (An English translation with minor variations titled ‘Recollections’ appeared in 2015. Quotes are taken from this version for ease of reference unless otherwise stated.) The book is openly and unashamedly fascist and pro-Nazi in content, and is a mix of autobiography, political screed, fantasy and revisionism. The author invented her Irish heritage from the very beginning and wrote about a toddler’s nationalist fervour and hostility her towards British family and their upper-class social circles. The result is hokey and reminiscent of a bad Hollywood film of the era. Hitler’s rise to power is greeted as a day of ‘triumph and delivery’ that will allow Germany to dispose of a cumbersome democracy and regain its place as a world leader by cleaning the cities of Jews and other undesirables who had polluted the nation. Some quotes illustrate the tone of the book.

The National Socialist Government, as it described itself, had a huge task ahead. A path had first to be cleared. The towns and cities were congested with swarms of destitute citizens, country folk unable to live on their land, East German refugees, Polish Jews. The demoralising effect of these centres was such, that the highest crime rate in post-war Europe was claimed by German cities; prostitution, drug-trafficking and other underworld activities flourishing. Despite the thankless job of sweeping these centres clean, such was the will of recovery, that the new government during this period even gained in popularity.

Ní Mheara compares German stormtroopers invading neighbouring countries spreading Nazi ideology to early Irish Christian missionaries in the Middle Ages, both working to civilize the barbarians. The individual Nazis she meets are portrayed as kindly and good-natured souls who wish to improve the world. The book cites fringe conspiracy theories as historical fact and repeats Nazi propaganda almost word for word, such as massacres of Germans to justify the invasion of Poland. The writing portrays Nazi Germany as an honourable blameless participant in world events and contains commentary on the Jewish culpability for the First World War, parrots Nazi justifications for military expansion and occupation, blames Churchill and Britain for starting the Second World War and engages in blatant Holocaust denialism. Having lived in Vienna during the Anschluss and Kristallnacht, Ní Mheara justified the anti-Jewish violence there:

The Jews in Vienna now became uneasy. To say this influential minority was anything more than respected would be a gross exaggeration. The Jews had contributed much to the arts, had gained control of the media and kept a firm grip on the cultural scene of the city, but as also owners of those dreaded pawnshops, the luxurious houses and limousines many of them displayed, caused deep resentment…Having monopolised so intensely public life in the city of Vienna, this minority had caused much animosity among its inhabitants, and this resentment they now had to suffer. In the heat of the moment, they certainly did so, and there were some ugly scenes for those Jews who went into hiding instead of boarding a train. Ousted out of their positions with a none-too-gentle hand, personal vengeance played often an ominous role. There was rabble in the streets — as if from nowhere suddenly a mob appeared, a mob that once bore red flags with hammer and scythe and now shouting National Socialistic slogans. They roamed the city, breaking shop windows and Jew-hunting. A division of Security Guards (SS) had to be ordered down from Berlin to restrain this violence and protect the Jews from the fury of the mob, so that their exodus could be conducted in a civil manner. Suffering long unemployment, the anger of the simple people was mainly directed against those Jews from Eastern regions who had swarmed into the impoverished city after World War I. Poor Jews as they were, arriving by foot with bundles on their backs, they were quick to enrich themselves as pawnbrokers and moneylenders. So, 'wandering Jews' these were again to become, pushed on into further territories.

These words were not written at the time of the events, they were written in the 1980’s, long after the facts of the Holocaust were widely known. An estimated 65,000 Austrian Jews were murdered. In justifying the exclusion of Jews from the arts, when Ní Mheara herself was required to prove her non-Jewish heritage, she wrote:

These measures were enforced as a counteraction to restrict the overpowering Jewish influence in post-war Germany, considered detrimental. In the cultural scene especially, this influence was thought to be the cause of the great moral decline in the cities…

She praised Nazi efforts to help ‘resettle’ Jewish communities:

Germany’s sincere intent was to provide the Jews with a homeland. and plans stayed on the agenda well into the war, only to be abandoned by force. Other efforts were dropped only when the mining of the seas made transport on a mass scale impossible. Such evacuation programmes became all the more pressing, as more and more Jews fell into the hands of the German army on the Eastern front. This army could do nothing more than herd these, their sworn enemies, into ghettos and to postpone the solving of the Jewish question until after the war…There is every evidence to prove that it was their earnest endeavour to provide the Jews with a homeland overseas.

Ní Mheara defended the Nuremberg Laws and suggested they hadn’t gone far enough:

The restrictive measures enforced by Germany on Jews in 1935 certainly hardly raised an eyebrow and can be seen by scanning the press accounts of the period. This indifference caused Hitler to underestimate the danger those measures exposed the nation to in the long run. Already his nomination had in 1933 incited the fury of the Jewish World Organization, whose members, lacking a government organ of their own, promptly declared war on Germany through press announcements.

Perhaps worst of all, Ní Mheara also repeated her Bergen-Belsen conspiracy theories. Claiming to have met an eyewitness, she asserted that Jewish inmates were well-fed, and deaths had only occurred among prisoners delayed on transport trains due to Allied bomb damage. Another of Ní Mheara’s theories stated that photographs of corpses from the camps had been staged using Germans killed in a bombing raid on Dresden. The book employs the typical one -two punch of the hardcore Holocaust denier – the Holocaust didn’t happen, but if it did, the Jews deserved it.

The book was widely condemned by reviewers at the time, and Mervyn Taylor, a Jewish Labour Party TD acting as Minister for Equality and Law Reform said “it would be scandalous if this book were to receive any help from a government-funded agency.” The Coiscéim publisher, Pádraig Ó Snódaigh, defended publishing the book as a marvellous historical document and compared critics of the work to Hitler. Seán de Fréine, Secretary of Bord na Leabhar Gaeilge, a state body which had provided funding for the book denied that the book was antisemitic. Other commentators weighed in on issues of censorship and freedom of the press, while being less enthusiastic about the Nazism. Perhaps the main attraction to the Irish language community was that the book was atypical of the standard memoirs of impoverished rural dwellers that make up a fair proportion of the Irish language autobiographies. Having an opportunity to discuss global events through the medium of Irish is understandable, but it seems more than a little unfortunate that the writer was a former Nazi who still propagated the worst bigotry and hatred towards jews possible. Despite being an Austrian resident at the time, Ní Mheara faced no criminal charges for Holocaust minimisation or denial, and one can assume that translation issues from a minority language such as Irish would play no small part in that decision. The book was published at a time when Holocaust revisionism and denial was gaining ground, as exemplified by David Irving, who was pursued by Austrian legal system and spent some time in prison for similar work.

The significance of the book should not be underestimated. Holocaust denial material written in Irish remains thankfully very limited, but this book was made possible through a major Irish language publisher and received Irish state funding. The controversy died down in large part because the work was published in Irish, a language that few are fluent in. The event raises questions about how minority languages can be used to further the aims of fascist movements and the impact such ideas can have on nationalist cultural movements through fascist creep into arts and language spaces. Like many of the fascists throughout modern Irish history, Róisín Ní Mheara’s supporters find it hard to discern between a person who’s work they admired and respected, and her genocidal tendencies, falling into a trap of supporting a personal connection and refusing to condemn their political beliefs for the horrific and bloody bigotry. This is a pattern that becomes clear when studying the aftermath of the war, when unlikable German Nazis such as Ludwig Mühlhausen were easily vilified, but likable German Nazis such as Helmut Clissmann were quickly rehabilitated into Irish circles.

Despite the controversy surrounding Cé hÍ Seo Amuigh?, another autobiographical work covering her post-war years, titled I gCéin is I gCóngar (Far and Near), was published in 2006 by the Historical Society of Armagh. Phyllis Ursula ‘Rosaleen’ 'Fodie' James, aka Nora O’Mara aka Frau Vinard aka Róisín Ní Mheara died in 2013 aged 94.

Sources:

Douglas, R.M. (2006). The Pro-Axis Underground in Ireland, 1939-1942 The Historical Journal , Dec. 2006, Vol. 49, No. 4 (Dec. 2006), pp. 1155-1183 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Elborn, Geoffrey (1990). Francis Stuart – A life. Dublin: Raven Arts Press

Hull, Mark and Moynes, Vera (2017) Masquerade – Treason, the Holocaust, and an Irish Imposter Norman: University of Oklahoma Press

Hull, Mark (2017) Holocaust Denial, Treason and Irish Identity History Ireland Issue 6 Vol. 25 November/December 2017

Lee, Celia (2020) Jean, Lady Hamilton 1861-1941 Diaries of a Soldier’s Wife Philadelphia: Pen and Sword

Ní Mheara, Róisín, (2015) Recollections London: Xlibris

O’Donoghue, David (2010). The Devil’s Deal – The IRA, Nazi Germany and the Double Life of Jim O Donovan Dublin: New Island Books

O’Donoghue, David (2014). Hitler’s Irish Voices – The story of German Radio’s Wartime Irish Service. Bantry, Co. Cork, Ireland: Somerville Press.