In February of 1997 a bizarre trial took place in Krems near Vienna. A sixty-six year old woman was in court. She could have been anyone’s grandmother and her charming, helpful demeanour showed no trace of the horrific crime of which she was accused. It was a crime that had shocked all of Austria and attracted worldwide media attention. She stood accused of poisoning her husband and at least two other men.

The woman was Elfriede Blaunensteiner. Her partner, Alois Pichler had died only two months after meeting her. He was not the only one and her victims were all her age group, both male and female who were lonely with few or no relatives. In all the cases that could be proven she was the sole inheritor of the victim’s property, thus providing greed as the sole motive.
A murderess is not common in Europe and especially not one so cold and calculating. In many ways she fitted the profile associated with murderesses. Female killers tend to kill differently to their male counterparts. In accordance with this pattern, Blauensteiner was careful, precise and methodical in her work. She poisoned her victims with drugs that were easy to obtain. Nobody can be too careful though, and it was when Blauensteiner made her first mistake that she was apprehended.

Little is known about Blaunensteiner’s early life. There was nothing special about it and perhaps this is one reason why she would later enjoy the media attention. It would to be her brief moment of attention. She was very much an ordinary woman, who was born in Vienna in 1931. Her father died in the war, which was a fate thousands of families had to suffer at the time and therefore grew up without a father figure in her life. The family was extremely poor and lived in squalor and dirt. Blauensteiner saw only one way to break out of this- with money. She married relatively young but the marriage failed, which left her with embittered towards men, a bitterness that was to have terrible consequences.

She had met the 76-year-old age pensioner, Alois Pichler who came from the village of Rossatzbach in the beautiful wine region of the Wachau, in the autumn of 1995 through an ad in the lonely-hearts column of popular newspaper the Kronen Zeitung. The ad she had placed read simply ‘looking for a lonely man, who longs for a home-loving widow’. It was exactly what the postmaster Pichler had been looking for- a caring companion with whom he could live out his days. Blauensteiner would oblige him in the latter, though sooner than he had thought.
He had no major health problems but suddenly fell into a comma, only two days after meeting Blauensteiner. He died in November, only two months after meeting her, leaving her his entire inheritance. She had earlier forged the will, quite possibly with the knowledge of her lawyer, one Harald Schmidt, who would later receive a prison sentence for his role as an accessory to murder. It wasn’t long before the inheritance had been spent in the casino at the roulette table, for Blauensteiner was addicted to gambling.

It would later emerge that Pichler, who had become bedridden since meeting her, had been locked in his room. As part of his ‘treatment’ she had covered him with wet blankets and left the window open although it was winter. She also gave him hot and cold baths to speed up his demise.
Pichler was where Blauensteiner had become careless. His sister, a 91-year-old nun who had become suspicious of her brother’s sudden deterioration in health and a nephew who wondered why he had been suddenly disinherited when it was expected that he would inherit his uncle’s estate, survived him. How was it that his uncle had left everything to a woman he had known for such a short time? He challenged the will and contacted the police. Once the police were involved and autopsy had to be carried out. The body was removed to Vienna, where the autopsy revealed large quantities of the anti-depressant anafranil in Pichler’s body. Pichler had obviously not died a natural death and Blauensteiner was the only suspect but how could it be proven that she had murdered him? After all, it could have been an accidental death.
In the meantime, the funeral, having been delayed because of the autopsy took place in December and Blauensteiner’s behaviour did little to dispel rumours in the village that she was nothing but a gold digger, who had probably sent Pichler to his grave. She did not appear to be in mourning and arrived late for the funeral, wearing a fur coat in the company of two bodyguards to protect her from the angry villagers. She walked up to the grave and with the words ‘adieu, Alois’ threw in a bunch of red roses into the open grave, turned and left. It was later claimed that she wrote a new ad for the lonely-hearts column while being driven away from the graveside.

The murder investigation began in earnest after the funeral. As part of the investigation Blauensteiner’s phone was tapped. The police officers, who listened, were shocked at what they heard. Not only was she talking to her lawyer matter of factly about the murder, but she also made reference to other murders. A serial killer had been found, of whose activities the full horrid details had yet to emerge.
The telephone conversations were enough for the police to move in and she was arrested in her Viennese apartment in Margarentenstrasse in January of 1996. She made no attempt to deny the accusations and spoke freely and in great detail about her activities, even giving herself the nickname the ‘black widow’, sending a cold shiver down the spine of the policemen interviewing her. She admitted to the murder of her partner and two other men. From the way she described her victims it was clear that she despised them. Had Blauensteiner not volunteered so much information to the police many of the deaths would have gone unnoticed. She did not see herself as a murderess though. She believed she had merely helped put them out of their misery.

Her first known victim was an old age pensioner by the name of Otto Reinl. She administered euglucon to him. Euglucon is a drug used for diabetics, which lowers the blood sugar level. Tan overdose of it can be fatal. The advantage for her of using euglucon and the anti-depressant anafranil was that they were tasteless and could therefore be added and dissolved in any hot drink. Thus her victims may not have been aware in the initial stages that Blauensteiner was poisoning them. By the time they realised she did not have their best interests at heart it was too late and like the spider who paralyses the fly they could only lie there and await their terrible fate. They drugs had been easy to get and she had simply made an appointment with a doctor and slipped him a little money. The official cause of death was diabetes mellitus and no suspicions were aroused.
In August 1992, her second husband, Rudolf Blaunensteiner then aged 52, fell ill and was nursed by his wife. Again euglucon was given to him as part of his ‘treatment’ although he was not even diabetic. He eventually went into a comma brought on by her ‘treatment’ and she continued giving him his ‘medicine’ until it killed him a week later. Blauensteiner was careful about disposing the body and had her late husband cremated.

A chance to get more money arose when the next-door neighbour, Franziska Köberl, became ill and Blauensteiner offered to nurse her back to health, but the patient’s health did not improve. It took somewhat longer for the euglucon to work on Köberl for she was a bit of a sweet tooth but once Blauensteiner became aware of this she increased the dose until Köberl also died on the 15 December 1992. Köberl left everything to Blauensteiner.

Friederich Döcker, a 65 year old bachelor also fell victim to her Blauensteiner’s care on 11 June 1995 after he answered her ad in the paper. According to his wishes his body was given to medical research, making a later autopsy impossible. She also helped her 61-year-old janitor to commit suicide.
The gaps between her murders were now narrowing and she was going out of control. The more she murdered the more difficult it would be to conceal it. She was bound to make a mistake soon and it would only be a matter of time before she was discovered. Alois Pichler was her last murder.

Her trial began in February of 1997 in Krems. She basked in the media attention and behaved like some kind of star who had just been invited to a talk show, doing her best to entertain her audience. Had her crimes not being so cold it would have been entertaining. Displaying her religious belief she even brought a golden crucifix into the trial and proclaimed before the judge ‘I wash my hands in innocence. I would never kill’. She seemed to have forgotten that she earlier admitted to everything. At no stage did she express any form of regret.
The only motive for her cold-hearted murders that could ever be established was simply greed. According to her own statement Blauensteiner spent 21 days a month in casinos playing roulette. She needed the money to feed her addiction. Sometimes she won and sometimes she lost. It has been estimated that she lost over a million euro in the casino.
There was insufficient evidence to link her to the murder of her husband and the charge was dropped, but not that of Pichler.
She was given life imprisonment for the murder of Pichler. True to character, at her sentencing she turned to the media and quipped ‘take all the photos you want of me. I’m a star now.’
Thus, she began her life in prison, where the other prisoners received her well and she became something of a mother to them. Ever aware of a fresh opportunity to make money she began work on her memoirs, expressing the hope that Steven Spielberg would buy the rights and make a movie about her life, with maybe Elisabeth Taylor in the lead role. A TV film was actually made for Austrian TV but was not as glamorous as Blauensteiner had hoped.
At a later trial in 2001, she was found guilty of murdering two other people. Her only concern was the lack of media attention and only wanted to discuss the recent film on her life with the media. Because she had already been given life she could not be, according to Austrian law, be sentenced any further. The judge proclaimed that while he could not sentence her further the case was of such an unfair dimension that is was too much for an earthly court to pass judgement on.
Thus she was officially charged and found guilty of the murder of three people, though it is more likely that she killed five or even more, but this could never be proven. Much to her disdain she faded into insignificance after this. Nobody cared about her anymore and her death of a brain tumour in 2003, while still in prison, failed to make the headlines.

Irishmen in The German Army

James Brady- A Roscommon man in the German Army

By

Rónán-Gearóid Ó Domhnaill

While the activities of William Joyce and Francis Stuart have been well documented over the years, very little is known about the handful of Irishmen who fought on the German side in the Second World War. These men were not part of the Legion of St George, a group of English men in the Waffen SS, as is often believed, but more specialised commandos. The most prominent of these were James Brady of Strokestown, Co Roscommon and Frank Stringer from Gravelstown, County Meath. It is also believed that one Patrick O’Neill served as a doctor with a SS penal battalion though this has never been satisfactorily confirmed.

Brady was born in Strokestown in 1920. His mother died when he was very young and in 1938 he went to Liverpool and enlisted in the Royal Irish Fusiliers. He was stationed on the Island of Guernsey, where he and Frank Stringer were involved in a fracas in a pub. After hitting the policeman who had come to arrest them they were both sentenced to a term in the local jail. When the regiment pulled out of Guernsey it seemingly forgot about Brady and Stringer. They were still in jail when the Germans took possession of the island in July 1940 and were subsequently transferred from the prison to a prisoner of war camp in France.
In May 1941, about fifty Irish POW's including Brady and Stringer were segregated from the other prisoners and sent to a camp at Friesack in Northern Germany under the supervision of the Abwehr or the German counterintelligence. It was intended that they were to form the nucleus of an Irish Brigade. It was not a new idea and just as Roger Casement had sought to form an Irish Brigade in the First World War so too did Seán Russell. He was not alone with this idea. Eoin O’Duffy also wanted to raise a brigade from Ireland to fight to Russia as he had done in Spain, though his plan was not taken seriously by the German authorities.
Other Irish men to receive specialised training in bomb making at Friesack included Sergeant John Codd from Dublin, William Murphy from Enniscorthy, Patrick O'Brien from Nenagh and Andrew Walsh from Fethard, County Tipperary.

The brigade was intended to appeal to Irish Nationalists, but as with the previous German Irish brigade it met with very limited success and it was decided to train them as spies instead. Helmut Clissmann, who later dropped into Ireland, was involved in their training.
That was not entirely successful either. They had been told that they were being transferred to a camp with better conditions for the Irish. This is all some of them wanted and had no intention in serving the Germans. The men were put under immense psychological pressure to cooperate and when the idea of dropping them into Ireland was deemed unworkable those unwilling to further cooperate were sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp.

The espionage side of things had little appeal for Brady and Stringer and in September of 1943 they both transferred to the Waffen SS where they received further training along with other European volunteers at Sennheim in Alsace. Brady adapted the alias De lacy and would reach the rank of SS-Unterscharfuehrer (Sergeant) before the war was out, while Stringer who became known as Le Page never rose above the rank of private.
It was in France that they received their blood groups tattooed on their left arms, which was common to all members of the SS. Their in-depth training there lasted until March of 1944. They were not satisfied being normal infantry men and sought more of a challenge. They were sent to a special camp at Friedenthal, near Berlin and became part of the elite commando SS-Jaegerbatallion 502, which had been set up by the Otto Skorzeny. Skorzeny was famous all over Europe for his daring rescue of Mussolini and would move to Ireland after the war. From there they were then posted to SS-Jagdverbande Mitte.
It was this unit that infiltrated the American lines dressed as Americans during the battle of the Bulge which spread panic through the American lines. While Brady and Stringer didn’t participate in this operation they did take part in Operation Mickey Mouse. The operation was a cunning plan to kidnap the son of Hungary’s regent Admiral Horthy, who had been planning to surrender to the Russians. The regent did not initially sway when his son was kidnapped but did when the SS kidnapped him as well and the operation in October 1944 was a success.
In spite of this success the Third Reich was collapsing. In January 1945 Brady was wounded during a Russian attack on the river Oder and had to be hospitalised. He fled from the hospital shortly before the Russians overran. At the war’s end he avoided captivity by going underground with other SS men. He did not seem content with a life on the run however and he turned himself into the British Authorities in Berlin in September of 1946. From there he was brought to London where in Mayfair in December of that year he was court –martialled and received a 12 year sentence.
Stringer had surrendered to the Americans, who handed him over to the British. He too faced court martial; when it was proven that he was that he had been a serving member of the British army when he had joined the German army. He was released from prison in 1950.What became of Brady after his prison sentence or indeed any of the Irish men mentioned in this article is not known.

Fraech

Fraech

Rónán-Gearóid Ó Domhnaill

The following tale has been adapted from an 8th century epic Táin Bó Fraech, but it is probably much older. Fraech of Connacht was the most handsome man in all of Ireland and Scotland. He was the son of Béfinn, who was the sister of Boann. It was after Boann that the river Boyne got his name. He spent seven years without a woman at his side, not because he did not want one or because he could not get one, but because he was looking for the right one and he knew that this would take time. How long it would take, he did not know but he was prepared to wait for his true love. The fame of this handsome bachelor was soon known throughout the island. Finnabair, whose name means fair eyebrows, daughter of Ailill and Medhbh of Connacht, heard of him and she expressed a desire to meet him. When he heard this he decided to seek the girl out, but first he went to his mother for advice and she advised him to head to the royal palace at Cruachain with all his fine cattle, servants and dressed in his finest clothes and this is what he did.
Fraech’s procession to Cruachain was a mighty one and a great crowd came out to meet him and his entourage. Ailill and Medhbh also welcomed him. A feast that lasted three days and three nights followed. Next morning he turned his attention to the purpose of his visit and went looking for Finnabair. He met her at a spring where she had stopped to wash her hands. It was the first time she had laid eyes on him and she liked what she saw. He asked her if she would elope with him. She refused, for she was the daughter of a king and he should pay a dowry and she knew Fraech was wealthy enough to pay her dowry.
As a sign of her affection for him, she gave him a thumb ring, which her own mother had given her.
Fraech went back to the palace and announced his intentions towards Finnabair. Ailill did not want to give up his daughter that easily and demanded an exorbitant dowry- sixty black grey horses with gold and silver bits, twelve milk cows as well as a white calf with red ears. Fraech knew this was too much and he refused to pay the dowry and walked out in disgust. Ailill and Medhbh had noticed the thumb ring he wore and knew their daughter was interested in Fraech. If she was interested in him, she might try to elope and Ailill thought of a way to get rid of him.

One day after a hunt, Ailill asked Fraech to show him how well he could swim. While Fraech was in the water Ailill opened the purse on Fraech’s belt, removed the thumb ring and threw in into the water. The loss of the ring would surely break up the intended union. A salmon swallowed the ring and Ailill walked away.

Fraech had seen what had happened and caught the salmon. That evening when they were at table Ailill was served with salmon and to his irritation saw that it contained the ring.
Aillil knew he would have to find another way of getting rid of Fraech and the chance arose when Medhbh fell ill. Now they were many cures for sickness at the time, but a definite cure was the fruit of a rowan tree that grew on the opposite side of a lake near Cruachain. Whoever ate the berries from this tree automatically gained another year to their life and whoever was sick or wounded was automatically healed.
Ailill told Fraech of this and the young man accepted the challenge without any hesitation. What Ailill conveniently forgot to tell Fraech was that a lake monster protected the tree and many young men had been killed trying to get the berries.
Fraech went into the water and swam towards the tree, which he reached without any difficulty. On the way back however, the monster became aware of his presence and went after the unsuspecting Fraech. He took a bite out of Fraech, who after overcoming his initial shock of the monster’s attack, frantically wrestled with it.
He shouted out for his sword. Ailill watching from the shore did not react. Finnabair was also on the shore and when she saw that her father was not doing anything to save him ran to where his sword was and threw it to Fraech. By this stage, the monster had bitten away his arm but the young hero chopped off its head and dragged it on shore where he himself collapsed. As he lay there, the wailing of women was heard and when they were asked why they wailed they said it was for Fraech who was soon to die. Finnabair embraced her lover but he did not survive his wounds and died in her arms. He was lamented by 150 women of the sídh who carried his body into the mound at Cruachain. This was the only time the beautiful Finnabair really loved someone and a poem from the twelfth century survives where she mourns the loss of her beloved Fraech. In The Cattle Raid of Cooley she is depicted as a heartless femme fatal who sends warriors, the most famous being Ferdia, competing for her affections, to take on the invincible Cú Chulainn.


Today near Tulsk in County Roscommon there is a mound known as Carnfree (Carn Fraoich), which was also the inauguration site for the O’Connors. In a nearby cave called Uaimh na gCat at Rathcrogan, one of three entrances in Ireland to the Otherworld, there is a sixth century inscription on a stone pillar, possible marking a grave, which reads ‘Fraech…son of Medhbh’.

The Rebel Sons of Erin

The Rebel Sons of Erin

Rónán Gearóid Ó Domhnaill

While the Irish who fought for the Northern states are often written about less is known about the estimated 50,000 Irish who fought for the South. When the Southerners looked upon the North as something of an aggressive bully, trying to dictate how they should live their lives, it was a sentiment with which the Irish could readily identify.

Unlike other regiments that were Irish in name only, the Tenth Tennessee Infantry Regiment was made up entirely of Irishmen and was one of only two confederate regiments made up of Irish Catholics, the others being comprised mostly of Ulster Protestants. Its officers were for the most Northern Irish Protestants, the most famous being Randall McGavock.

The regiment was set up at Fort Henry, on the Tennessee River, in May of 1861, a few weeks after war breaking out and colonel Heiman assumed command. It soon numbered 720 men armed with flintlock muskets. The Regimental flag, which is currently hangs on display in Nashville Museum, was made up of a golden harp with a maroon trim on a green background. Over the harp in white lettering was written "Sons of Erin" and underneath "Where glory await you". The regiment became locally known as The Rebel Sons of Erin but as later the war took a horrific toll on its numbers, they were christened The Bloody Tenth.
One of the regiment`s youngest soldiers was seventeen year old Patrick Griffin, who was born on St. Patrick's Day, 1844, in County Galway. His parents Michael and Honora Griffin decided left Ireland in 1847 when The Famine was at its worst, and in their desperation, they had to leave three of their children behind. When they landed in Baltimore, Patrick’s father worked laying train tracks, a job that would take the family to Nashville.
This regiment stayed at Fort Henry to drill and to train. It first saw action in February 1862 when the Union army bombarded the fort. It was ordered to fall back to Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River where they thought they would be safe. After wadding a number of streams swollen by rain and snow, and being constantly harassed by Union cavalry they eventually reached the fort late that night. They soon found themselves under attack again when Union soldiers attacked the fort. Weary and outnumbered the 10th Tennessee held them at bay for four days before being compelled to surrender.
Their time in captivity was to prove harsh and they suffered under the atrocious conditions in the Union prison at Fort Warren in Boston Harbour. Five months later they were exchanged for Union prisoners and the regiment was reformed again at Clinton, Mississippi in October of 1862. When Colonel Heiman died in November, 1862 he was succeeded by Colonel Randall W. McGavock. He was a highly regarded figure in Tennessee, where he had been a former mayor of Nashville .
Near the end of December, 1862 the regiment was ordered to Vicksburg and helped defeat General Sherman's forces at the Battle of Chickasaw Bayou. In January 1863 the 10th Tennessee was 349 strong and was serving General Gregg at Port Hudson, Louisiana, where the Union navy bombarded them. They later engaged with Union troops at Jackson, Mississippi, and repulsed them. The 10th Tennessee then marched to Raymond, Mississippi, where, on May 12th, they fought in the Battle of Raymond, suffering 52 casualties.

At Raymond the confederate General John Gregg faced General Ulysses S. Grant. The confederates were trying to prevent the Union troops from reaching the Southern Railroad and isolating Vicksburg, Mississippi from reinforcement and resupply. It was a small but important battle in the Vicksburg campaign that thwarted Union plans.

In the midst of the battle as the regiment awaited orders to move forward, McGavock sent a courier to find General Gregg. The courier returned, not with orders from General Gregg, but with news that the Confederate centre had been routed. McGavock then ordered his regiment into an impetuous and ill conceived assault on the centre to repel the Union soldiers. He threw back his cape and rallied his men. The red lining of his cape made him a perfect target and he was riddled with more than twelve bullets. His men carried on, only to realise that they were now being fired upon from all sides and were forced into a retreat.

Ever loyal to his commander, the young Patrick Griffin took McGavock`s body from the field which led to his capture. The officer who captured him, a man by the name of McGuire, was also from Galway. Impressed by the young soldier’s courage and at finding a fellow Galwegian he ordered his men to place McGavock's body in one of the Union army wagons for transport into town, where after a coffin was hastily put together he was buried with full honours.
After the battle of Raymond the regiment now numbering 328 took part with remnants of other Tennessee regiments in the Battle of Chickamauga fighting mainly as sharpshooters. The combined regiment suffered 224 killed and wounded at Chickamauga. Their last major battle was at Bentonville, North Carolina in March of 1865
By the time they surrendered at Greensboro, North Carolina, in April of that year they numbered less than 100, all of whom had been wounded several times.
The war had taken its toll on the 21 year old Griffin who had been wounded and taken prisoner three times as well as taking part in twenty-four engagements with the enemy. It was these engagements with which he would later regal future generations. By the time he died in 1921 he had ensured that the contribution of the confederate Irish would not be forgotten.

Gottfried von Banfield

The Austrian Military Academy at Wiener-Neustadt has a room, a monument to former Imperial glory. Oil paintings of the great generals of Imperial Austria adorn the walls, all of whom were recipients of Imperial Austria’s highest order The Maria Theresa Order. Introduced in 1757 by Empress Maria Theresa, the prestigious award honoured exceptional courage in wartime. Many recipients such as Browne, Macquire, O’Donell and Lacy were Irish. One painting, depicting a young man in naval uniform stands out from the rest, that of Gottfried von Banfield, the empire’s greatest air ace.
He was born in 1890 in Castelnuovo, then part of The Austro-Hungarian Empire, in present day Italy, as the youngest of five children, near the homeport of the now nonexistent Austrian Navy in Pola.
His father was Richard von Banfield of Clonmel and Castlelyons. The von Banfields were by no means the only Irish in Trieste. With the establishment of the Austrian Imperial navy in 1720, Georg Forbes of Granard (it is interesting that most of the Wild Geese, while retaining Irish surnames took on German Christian names) became the first grand admiral and set up the naval base at Trieste. Admiral Richard Barry who also served in the area organised the naval defence of Venice in 1859.
Richard von Banfield made his name in 1886 in the Austro-Italian war during the battle of Lissa in the Adriatic, when he sank the Italian flagship the “Re d’Italia”. Years later his son Gottfried would fight the same foe, and as the most highly decorated air ace of The Austro-Hungarian Empire on a par with Baron von Richthofen, become even more famous than his father.
The young Gottfried was sent to military school at the age of eleven. Before he would be accepted, however he had to take Austrian citizenship. He would later attend the naval academy at Fiume and graduated in 1909. After a brief spell as a frigate-lieutenant, he began pilot training. He perfected his training under the Frenchman Jean Louis Conneau, a famous pilot known throughout Europe at the time. He would later meet his teacher as an adversary over the skies over the Adriatic.
He was posted to Pola, where he began his training in seaplanes, and assumed command of the seaplane station there, which was named after him and where he would soon become something of a living legend. He flew a Lohner biplane seaplane and it was in this plane that he scored his first victories against the Italians and their French allies in June of 1915.
He later led a highly successful attack on the Italian flotilla at the central Italian port of Ancona on the Adriatic. His prowess soon earned him the title “The Eagle of Trieste”. In total, he would fly 400 sorties against the enemy and was the first imperial Austria pilot to score a victory at night.
Just how many victories he scored is a matter of dispute. Some sources say twenty, though some of these were unconfirmed. Naval pilots had the disadvantage over other aviators in that the planes they shot down were generally over water, making it more difficult to confirm a kill. His sorties were not without danger and he was lightly wounded three times and quite seriously in 1918.
In 1917, von Banfield was summoned to meet with Kaiser Karl, son of Franz-Josef who had died the previous year. He was to receive The Maria Theresa Order, the highest decoration the emperor could bestow. He was one of only 1,135 recipients of the award and the only Imperial Austrian pilot to receive such a distinction. As part of the award, von Banfield was raised to the status of Freiherr (Baron). It was the 180th time the order was bestowed, and it would be the last time in Imperial Austria. Imperial Austria collapsed in 1918 as did many other empires and when Austria became a republic titles such as ‘von’ and ‘baron’ were outlawed for Austrians citizens.
With the war over von Banfield like thousands of others now faced an uncertain future. Italy annexed Trieste and he was for a time imprisoned by the Italian authorities. After his release, he worked for Skoda in Prague before immigrating to England in 1920 where he married Countess Maria Tripcovich of Trieste. They lived in Newscastle and had one son, Raphael Douglas, who was born in 1922. He would grow up to become a composer under the name Raffaello de Banfield Tripcovich and die in 2008 leaving no heirs.
In 1926, von Banfield returned to Trieste and took over his late father-in-law’s salvage business. He also took on Italian citizenship and soon became a well-known and well-liked figure in the area with the locals referring to him as ‘il nostro Barone’ or ‘Our Baron’.
His salvage business turned out to be highly lucrative. Once the Second World War started, he had plenty of work in the Adriatic and Mediterranean. His maxim was ‘if it’s easy it doesn’t interest me’. He won international acclaim when he cleared the Suez Canal of mines and debris in record time following The Suez Crisis.
He visited Ireland on several occasions. The French honoured him with the Legion d’Honnnuer in 1977 and although now based on land he retained a passion for sailing, which he carried out until he was 90.
His died in 1986, aged 96. His passing brought about not only the death of the Austria’s most well known fighter ace, but also the last knight of the Maria Theresa Order, ending a 230 year old tradition. For the Irish it signalled the end of 300 years of Irish military service to Austria as von Banfield was also the last of the wild Geese. In honour of his achievements, the graduating class of 1990 at Austria’s Military academy bore his name.

The Limerick Germans

The Limerick Germans

Rónán Gearóid Ó Domhnaill

One beautiful fair’s day as I went through Baile Uí Shíoda
Who should I meet on the way only a Palatine’s daughter
She asked me my name and where I was from. Said she:
‘If you abandon The Mass you will get my hand in marriage
And have a pretty girl by your side if you want a Palatine’.

The above words are an English translation from a charming folksong song Iníon an Phalaitinigh and recall an all but forgotten time when Germans lived in Ireland.
Eighteenth century Europe was a turbulent place and Western Germany particularly the area along the French border now known Rhineland-Pfalz was ravaged by war. The Lutheran Palatines inhabiting the area suffered greatly from French attacks and Queen Anne, a champion of Protestantism offered them refuge in Britain. In 1709 Eight thousand moved to Rotterdam, where English ships were to convey them to a safe haven. It turned out that there were two thousand Catholics in the group and they were turned away. Three thousand of the group sailed to The New World while the remaining three thousand Palatines were brought first of all to England, which was ill equipped to deal with them and then on to Dublin, where in the autumn of 1709, 871 families, numbering 3073 arrived. It was hoped they would augment the Protestant population of rural Ireland.
Their time in Dublin was not happy one. They were overcharged for food, were sold watered down milk and given counterfeit money in change. This was so rife that the Lord Mayor of Dublin issued a proclamation promising to deal severely with the culprits.
From Dublin the Palatines were dispatched to sympathetic landlords in Gorey on the Abel Ram estate and also Carlow. By far the biggest colony however would turn out to be in Rathkeale County Limerick on the Southwell estate. Sir John Southwell, a Catholic landlord warmly embraced the concept of the colony and by 1714 over 130 families were living on Southwells lands.
Each Palatine received eight acres of land at a nominal rent of five shillings per acre and at leases of three lives. Each family was also allowed forty shillings a year for seven years to buy stock and utensils. This was quite generous, considering that the Irish tenants at the time were paying rents of thirty five shillings per acre. Such generosity did not prevail and in the 1740s many landlords increased the rent considerably, so much so that many Palatines left the country in favour of America. It was around this time that the colony in Gorey and Carlow all but vanished.
In addition to the land, every Palatine household received a musket to protect themselves from the Irish. The Palatine men joined a local Yeomanry calling themselves "True Blues" or "German Fusiliers". It turned out to be unnecessary as the native Irish left them in peace.
To earn a living they farmed the land and were known to grown hemp and flax as well as raise cattle. Their agricultural practices differed to that of the locals. While the Irish were wont to plant potatoes using the spade, the Palatines used horses and ploughs. They ploughed the land in spring, planted the potatoes in the furrows and covered it over again with the plough. Again at harvest they used the plough to dig out the potatoes. They were also renowned for their cider production.
They had a distinctive Germanic lifestyle until the 19th century. While their Christian names such as Adam, Ebenezer, Ernest, Frederick, Jacob, Jasper, Julius, Ethel, Rebecca Julius, were distinctly German they tended to adopt more Irish names in the 19th century.
One of their customs was to be buried with their bibles, which accounts for the fact that while they spoke German, they had no bibles in the German language. They maintained their dialect until 1880 when the last speaker Long Anne Teskey from Rathkeale, who was also a fluent Irish speaker, passed away at the age of 115. The name Teskey is still common in the Rathkeale area.
While it was expected that the Palatines join the Anglican Church many turned to Methodism. They built a Methodist church at Ballingrane near Rathkeale in 1766 which was dedicated to the memory of Philip Embury and his cousin Barbara Heck. Both were from the area and when they left for America they became leading figures in the Methodist church. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, made several missionary trips to Ireland and always made a point of visiting the Palatine communities of Co. Limerick. The small cemetery in the churchyard still bears the graves of the Palatine community. The church had no bell so a cow horn, which still survives, was used to summon the faithful to service.
Largely due to their varied diet they were not greatly afflicted by the Great Famine of 1845. The dire state of the country however, encouraged many to emigrate to America, which furthered reduced the colony.
While in the eighteenth century they tended to marry only within the Palatine community their reduced numbers forced them to marry outside the colony and as time went by they became more integrated with the Irish and their settlements diminished. Little remains of their settlement today although in Killaheen there is still an old Palatine well.It consists of a trench cut into the ground deeper than the water table. The sides and the top are lined with stone and 18 stone steps lead down the clear cold water.
The colony failed to spread the Protestant faith to any large extent in the area and they failed to make linguistic impact. Consequently no Palatine words survive in the locality today. Their ancestors however, are eager to keep their memory alive. Many Irish surnames such as Cole, Crowe, Young, Cooke, St. John, Bowen, Laurence, Lowe, Miller, Everett, Ross, and Switzer have Palatine origins. The latter family became famous in the retail business.
The Irish Palatine association was formed in 1989. At an old disused railway building just off the N21 Limerick to Tralee road in Rathkeale they have a heritage centre where more information can be acquired.

Saint Virgil of Salzburg
by
Rónán-Gearóid Ó Domhnaill

Ireland’s contribution to the cultural renaissance that followed The Dark Ages has largely been forgotten outside of Central Europe. One of the lesser well known saints, but a major contributor to this renaissance was St Virgil, Virgil or Virgilius being the Latin form of Fergal. He was a man very much ahead of his time, who would go on to become the patron saint of Salzburg, in Austria, where he is still revered to this day.
He was born of noble birth around 700, where exactly is not known, though some sources suggest Trim, County Meath, and educated at the monastery of Iona. After becoming a monk and a priest he became the abbot of a monastery at Aghaboe in County Laois in the late 730's.

He decided to travel to the Holy land and this decision marked a turning point in his life.
It was not unusual at the time for Irish monks to go abroad. Following the collapse of the Roman Empire in the 4th century and the ensuing Barbarian invasions, Europe was plunged into a cultural void known as The Dark Ages and the spread of Christianity as well as cultural development in general came to a halt. Ireland was spared this terrible period and the island of saints and scholars sent hundreds of missionaries to Southern Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The missionary work was not without its risks and St. Cillian from Mullagh, Co Cavan was martyred in Würzburg in 689. It was largely due to these missionaries that Christianity not only flourished once more, but Central Europe experienced a cultural renaissance not seen since the Roman Empire.
En route to Jerusalem Virgil came to the court of Pipin at Compaigne in 741. Pipin was the father of the emperor Charlemagne and both men were champions of the faith. Pipin welcomed Virgil and his followers and employed them as consultants. In 744, Pipin sent Virgil and his companions to the court of his brother-in-law, Ottilo, Duke of Bavaria, whose dukedom was only partly Christian. While Southern Germany and Austria are today strongly Catholic areas, in the 8th century and it was on the edge of the Christian world and in desperate need of missionaries.
From there Virgil was sent to Salzburg where he founded a monastery and became abbot-bishop of St. Peter’s Monastery, while his companion Sidonius became bishop of Passau. It was in Salzburg, that Virgil was to remain for the next forty years spreading the word of God. Virgil, however, was the only saint operating in the area. St. Boniface, a Saxon missionary who was primate of Germany controlled the diocese of Bavaria, to which Salzburg belonged and the two saints soon became rivals.
Part of the problem was that Virgil was doing things ‘the Irish way’. Boniface had structured the church so that it looked towards Rome. The early Irish church or the ‘Celtic church as it was also known, however, saw itself more independent of Rome and was not hierarchical, the abbots being regarded as independent authorities.
The first dispute arose over baptisms. Priest at the time were poorly trained and ill educated. Their Latin was equally poor and when Boniface learnt that their Latin grammar was weak he declared baptisms in Virgil’s diocese to be invalid. Virgil disagreed and the matter came before Pope Zachary, who supported Virgil stating that ignorance of Latin did not invalidate baptisms.
Apart from being a holy man, Virgil was one of the most learned men of his age. As well as being a brilliant theologist and philosopher Virgil was a renowned mathematician and astronomist. His knowledge of geography earned him the nickname ‘geometer’. This was in a time when very little was known of the physical world. He believed that the world was round as opposed to flat. This was nothing new at the time. The Ancient Greeks such as Pythagoras and Aristotle had argued this centuries before, but Virgil was among the first Christians to believe and propagate this. In any case very few people had access to the ancient Greek manuscripts and as a result they were not widely known. Other theologians such as St. Augustine and his Virgil’s compatriot Dungal, astronomer to the Emperor Charlemagne also believed in a spherical earth but refuted the notion of the antipodes.
Virgil did believe in the antipodes, the theory that people lived on the other side of the world. The Irish, influenced by Saint Brendan the Navigator and the earlier pagan eachtra stories, believed that people lived on the other side of the world. This was of course several centuries before Columbus and mediaeval depictions of such people portrayed them as deformed creatures, with legs growing upwards out of their heads.
Boniface interpreted Virgil’s teachings that these people were not of the ‘race of Adam’ and therefore not in need of salvation. Boniface, perhaps stinging from the previous year’s baptismal humiliation, seized his opportunity to report him to Pope Zachary in 748, who ordered him to set up a church council to investigate Virgil.
It was a charge that would have to be proven and few knew more about the antipodes than Virgil. The pope was not expected to rule in his favour and excommunication loomed. Fortunately for Virgil the Pope died and the matter was apparently forgotten. It did not appear to stain his career as he was made bishop of Salzburg, though when exactly is not known. The area was not big enough for both saints and Boniface went to Frisia, in present day Holland, where he was martyred in 754. From Salzburg Virgil dispatched missionaries to what is now the Czech Republic and Hungry and acquiring land, set about buildings churches.
In 774 he laid the foundation stone of Salzburg’s cathedral and dedicated it to Saint Rupert.
He died in 784 and was canonized in 1233. In 1288 his remains were interred under the altar of Salzburg Cathedral, where they still remain. Unfortunately, all of his writings disappeared with his passing. He is commemorated in Germany and Austria on 24 September and in the rest of the world on 27 November.