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Home For Christmas: John Francis O'Reilly And John Kenny - The Last German Agents To "Drop In" To Neutral Ireland, 16 and 19 December 1943
A Lecture by Anthony Kinsella, Military History Society of Ireland
John Francis O'Reilly who was originally from Kilkee, County Clare was working in Jersey when the Germans invaded the Channel Islands in late June 1940. He ingratiated himself with them and moved to Berlin from where he broadcast to neutral Ireland on the German long wave radio service. He proposed to the SS Intelligence service (SD) that he could contact the IRA, spy in Northern Ireland and liaise with Scottish and Welsh nationalist groups. He recruited Dublin born John Kenny, who was working for the Germans in Jersey, as his assistant and both were flown back to Ireland by the Luftwaffe in December 1943.
They were quickly arrested by An Garda Síochána and imprisoned in Arbour Hill Military Prison from which O'Reilly escaped. He was re-arrested and imprisoned until the end of the war.
The evolving situation of the civilian population of the Channel islands will be described in parallel with O'Reilly's escapades in Jersey, Nazi Germany and neutral Ireland
