When the Nazi’s looked to Leitrim: The forgotten WWII invasion plan

The Leitrim-Donegal border played an unexpected role in Nazi Germany’s secret plans during World War Two.

Éamon Ó Caoineachán, locally known as Eddie Keenaghan, is an Irish poet, writer, and historian living in Texas and originally from Bundoran.

He has been researching “Operation Green,” which was Nazi Germany’s 1940-1941 plan to use Ireland as a foothold against Britain.

Éamon revealed that the Luftwaffe captured an aerial photograph of the Drowes River on the Leitrim-Donegal border, mistakenly identifying it as the Bradóg River.

“The Nazis clearly didn't know the Donegal-Leitrim border all too well when they considered planning to invade Ireland during Operation Green, but their air force, the Luftwaffe, knew it well enough to capture an aerial photograph of it,” said Éamon.

Incredibly, the border was chosen as a possible landing site for the planned invasion.

Although the plan was abandoned after Germany’s defeat in the Battle of Britain, Éamon described the prospect of the invasion as “alarming, especially how it would have traumatically impacted the local communities who had recently experienced colonisation.”

Éamon first learned about the photographs in 2012 after reading a Journal.ie article and was again reminded of them through historian Marc McMenamin’s research in 2020.

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He later received the Nazi military booklet Militärgeographische Angaben über Irland (Military Geographical Data on Ireland) by a colleague from Harvard, where he discovered the photograph of the Leitrim-Donegal border.

Chosen landing spot by the Drowes River

Bundoran historian Seanie Carty noted that the chosen landing spot would have been disastrous. “That spot where the X is would probably be the worst possible place to land that they could have chosen. It would almost certainly have ended in the death of all involved,” he said.

From discussions Éamon had with Seanie Carty, and historian Joe McGowan, they all agreed that the Nazi’s likely had an informant in the Leitrim and Donegal areas given their strategic awareness of sites like the Donegal corridor.

Éamon suggested that Nazi professor and suspected German spy Dr Ludwig Mühlhausen may have played a role.

“The Wild Atlantic Way could have ended up tragically living up to its wild name in the worst imaginable way, if the Nazis invaded Ireland - twenty years after Ireland's fight for Independence,” Éamon said.

Mr Carty also made the point of the controversial history of Irish neutrality in the area at the time. “The Éire sign during WWII that was on Rougey - unlike the other signs on the coast, that one wasn't put in place by the Irish government. It was put there by local Republicans in protest of American and British planes using the Donegal Corridor.”

Little did many locals know at the time, as Éamon put it, “that the dreaded Nazis were spying on foot and were also flying overhead.”

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