CARTER (Carolle J.) The Shamrock and the Swastika. German Espionage in Ireland in World War II.

Foreword by Richard J. Hayes. Palo Alto: Pacific Books, 1977. First edition. pp. [viii], 287. Publisher’s green cloth, title lettered in black; in the original pictorial dust jacket depicting a shamrock entwined with a swastika. Jacket with some wear at head of spine, small closed tears and light soiling, but a very good example. Internally a fine, clean copy with firm, square binding.

A significant and still-unsurpassed study of German intelligence operations in neutral Ireland during the Second World War. Drawing on interviews, American and Irish archival sources, and previously unexamined wartime intelligence files, Carter reconstructs the activities of Abwehr agents, IRA intermediaries, and German sympathisers in Ireland. The narrative includes detailed accounts of Dr Hermann Goertz, the Lenihan–O’Reilly network, Operation Mainau, Operation Dove, the Friesack Camp, and a range of little-known figures whose espionage efforts intersected with Irish neutrality and republican politics. Richard Hayes’s foreword—by the former Director of the National Library and head of G2 cryptanalysis—adds considerable authority.

Illustrated throughout with photographs, maps, and documentary material, this remains a key reference work on Irish wartime intelligence and German–Irish clandestine relations.

A scarce first edition, increasingly difficult to find in collectible condition.

[L4 8A]