So he continued to do that through the 10-month occupation by the Nazis of Rome, and was a very great man, very courageous man. Didn’t talk about it much as far as I have been able to ascertain. He did one interview about this in the course of his whole life, and died in October of 1963. I was born in September of 1963. And I’m very, very glad that for one month, I was on the same planet with the great Hugh O’Flaherty.

Prisoners are escaping from the NAZIS Prison in Rome after they take it in the Second World War (obviously). There's a new choir in the Vatican a independent state in Rome the Home of the Pope and many Priest as well as others. Well, there’s a lot of it there, isn’t there? It’s never ending. You could go to Rome every year and find something new. We were there just this Christmas, six weeks ago, and we were fortunate enough to go on a tour of the scavi, the excavations beneath St. Peter’s, one of the most remarkable places I’ve ever been. There are tunnels under St. Peter’s that nobody had seen for 1,000 years, until they were accidentally rediscovered in the 1940s. They include a widowed Italian countess, a flamboyant British diplomat to the Vatican and a Jewish Londoner jazz musician-turned-inspired scrounger, and they do actually sing at music rehearsals, conducted by the Monsignor. But all the while, he is distributing detailed instructions to each for what to do on the next Rendimento, the mission to help save thousands of Allied men. I was drawn to the novel as I know so little about Italian resistance and the plight of POWs held by the Germans in Italy. Most novels I have read have centred on Paris and escape routes in France.

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Something is being expressed that writing doesn't do, that painting doesn't do. They do beautiful things, but nothing else really does that, which, for me, is proof there is mystery in our daily experience. Music is probably the most universally loved art form yet it’s so abstract. When you think about it, music doesn't sound like anything but itself and yet we have this need and reverence for it. What more proof do you need that there is stuff about life we don't yet understand? When I hear music, I believe and I know that there's something going on in life that has not yet been quantified.” First of all, I’m excited that O’Connor brought to the forefront a little-known piece of wartime history. I’d never heard of ‘the Scarlet Pimpernel of the Vatican’ before and was curious as to how he hid and protected so many from the Nazis. Not only did he hide POWs, but he also aided downed pilots and rescued books. I was held captive with O’Connor’s premise; a choir conductor and choir preparing for a performance! I was also prompted to research the head of the SS and Gestapo in Rome, Herbert Kappler and understand a little more of the irony of his last days. I’m still shaking my head. Some of them are based on people who really did exist. There’s a woman called Delia Kiernan, who would be known to fans of Irish folk music as Delia Murphy. She was a big star in the 1940s and ’50s in Ireland. And there are people from very different faiths, perspectives and from no faith. There are people in the group who are communists; there are people in the group who are atheists. They’re brought together by, I suppose, no. 1, their love of Rome. And no. 2, their determination that in this struggle, when the chips are down, they’re going to have to do something to save as many people as they can.

This is a well conceived novel which has a group of individuals led by Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty to find sanctuary and safety for escaped prisoners of war.Coming across a tale as thrilling as O’Flaherty’s would be cause for celebration for any writer. O’Connor first heard tell of him in Kerry. O’Connor is on stellar form with this ensemble thriller… while the story’s inbuilt tension urges you on, it’s the sheer vigour of O’Connor’s beautifully turned phrases that really makes the book sing… an expert storyteller.” My only previous experience of Joseph O’Connor’s work is his novel Shadowplay, a fictionalized account of the life of Bram Stoker which was shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Fiction 2020. That book utilised a number of structural techniques including diary entries, letters and transcripts of conversations as well as more traditional third person narration, and the same is true of this latest novel. My Father’s House is set in Rome, more precisely in the Vatican, during the Nazi occupation and is described by the publishers as a ‘WWII-era “great escape” novel’. The book is based on the true story of Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty who, along with others, risked his life to smuggle thousands of Jews and escaped Allied prisoners out of Italy. The cover for the operations is a choir, with musical or literary terms used as code words. Well, I don't think we're neutral. I mean, we’re politically neutral, but there's no doubt at all of the Irish government's stance and the Irish people's stance in general. We're not neutral when it comes to Ukraine.” Faith & Doubt At the very end of the book, there’s a scene where the British ambassador, who is also based on a real person, Sir D’Arcy Osborne, is giving a speech. And he says, “When I have been requested down the years to define the Rome Escape Line, I’ve always said the same thing. And I always shall. It was my dear friend Hugh O’Flaherty and a number of us who loved him.” And I think that’s true.

From the acclaimed, bestselling author of Star of the Sea and winner of the 2021 Irish Book Awards Book of the Year for Shadowplay, comes a gripping and atmospheric new novel set in occupied Rome. The Gestapo were meticulous in their surveillance of the priest and his visitors, so the tension was unbearable at times. This was beautifully written but as in any conflict, its ensuing pain, misery, and hardship, makes one wonder at the fortitude and perseverance required both to live, and to survive the cruelty and oppression, but more so to ignore the gnawing fear and take action against the cruelty and injustice, regardless of the threat to oneself. Highly recommended!

My Father’s House book review: Irish priest who defied Nazis in Rome

Those that run the Escape Line — an initiative Hauptmann is determined to stamp out — are gathered together in what becomes known as the Choir, under the tutelage of Monsignor O’Flaherty. Two beautiful novels have moved me to tears and do so again every time I reread them. Peter Carey’s Oscar and Lucinda, and Toni Morrison’s Jazz. Never has the incredible story of Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty been fictionalised in such a vividly immersive experience. A powerful work of art.” That it deserves scrutiny. Also, that it may have altered over the course of the Roman occupation. Also, that Pius XII was not the first pope to think mutually contradictory things. Or the last. Alas. But My Father’s House is not a novel about the Catholic Church. To say so would be like saying The Sound of Music is a movie about nuns. I'm not a practicing catholic and I’m not here to propagandise on behalf of the Popes. What I would like to talk about is the book. We went to a mass said by the Pope in the Vatican on Christmas Eve and the theatre of it was splendid. It's probably the first time I've been to a mass that wasn't a funeral since I was seventeen. The Catholic Church is not part of my life. At the same time, if you're writing about a priest where it's not Father Ted, you have to reconcile yourself to the fact that he's strongly motivated by and believes in the central tenets of his faith. I'm not going to take the piss, I'm going to portray him with the respect that I feel for the real Hugh O'Flaherty and take my views out of it.”

He was born in 1898 in County Cork in Ireland, but he was brought up in County Kerry. In his later 20s he became a Catholic priest and went to live and study in Rome. He was a scholarly man, very intelligent: two Ph.D.s, lectured in theology, spoke five or six languages. Ciarán Byrne (27 February 2010). "The late Eugene Lambert – neighbour and artist from south Dublin". Irish Independent. Archived from the original on 23 October 2012 . Retrieved 9 June 2012.My Father's House by Joseph O'Connor: A masterful, seamless blend of fact and fiction". The Irish Times . Retrieved 12 March 2023. Join Book Club: Delivered to your inbox every Friday, a selection of publishing news, literary observations, poetry recommendations and more from Book World writer Ron Charles. Sign up for the newsletter. It was a dangerous game they played with Hauptmann, one where their own lives would have been extinguished if found they housed and kept Jews safe. The danger and peril was ever so real and the author does an excellent job of showing the reader that with scenes that set one's heart beating faster. This was a game played out against the Nazi oppressor and through The Monsignor and his band of loyal friends, they managed to save thousands of Jews and Allied trapped soldiers. They were brilliant but everything they did came under the intense scrutiny of Paul Hauptman who knew something was happening but couldn't quite catch them all. Some he did and they lost their lives but no one ever turned over the names of the group.