Liam Devlin

Last updated

Liam Devlin
First appearance The Eagle Has Landed
Created by Jack Higgins
Portrayed by Donald Sutherland
Keith Carradine
In-universe information
GenderMale
OccupationSpy
Assassin
NationalityIrish

Liam Devlin is a protagonist and recurring character in the novels of Jack Higgins. "Liam Devlin" is a pseudonym and his real name is never revealed.

Contents

Fictional biography

Early life

Liam Devlin is described as being born in County Down, Northern Ireland, and having attended Trinity College Dublin. [1] However, during a visit to Belfast, he witnesses his elderly uncle, a Catholic priest, being assaulted by a Protestant mob. When the members of the Irish Republican Army attempt to defend the church building, Devlin picks up a gun and joins them.

Devlin later receives the assignment to hunt down and assassinate two British informers who have fled to America. He succeeds and is later described by a Scotland Yard detective as "the most cold blooded executioner the movement has seen since Collins and his murder squad". [1]

During the Spanish Civil War, Devlin volunteers for the Connolly Column and is later captured by Falangist forces. While in a detention camp, he is recruited by Germany's military intelligence service, the Abwehr . During an intelligence mission inside the neutral Irish Free State, he is captured after a gunfight with the Garda Síochána, but later escapes from hospital in Dublin. The incident has left him with bullet scar on the forehead.

Kidnapping Churchill

In the 1975 novel The Eagle Has Landed , Devlin has recovered from his wounds and is teaching Irish language literature at Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin. He is then approached by Colonel Radl of the Abwehr and recruited into a secret mission to kidnap Winston Churchill. He is parachuted near the Northern Ireland border and makes his way into England, posing as an Irish veteran of the British Army. While scouting for the arrival of German paratroopers in Norfolk, Devlin poses as a stereotypical "bog Irishman." He also meets and falls in love with Molly Prior, a young girl from the village of Studley Constable. He subsequently saves her from a would-be rapist and introduces her to the poetry of Antoine Ó Raifteiri. Soon after, they make love. In later novels, Devlin thinks about Molly from time to time.

When the German soldiers commanded by Col. Kurt Steiner arrive, they pose as Free Polish troops. Molly is overjoyed, believing that Devlin is still in the British Army and not a black marketeer like she had previously thought. However, one of the paratroopers is killed while rescuing two village children in an accident and his German uniform is seen by the villagers. As a result, the villagers and their priest are taken hostage and hidden in the village's Roman Catholic church. The priest's sister is able to escape and inform a nearby unit of the United States Army. Although enraged and betrayed when she learns of Devlin's true loyalties, Molly has no desire to see him killed by the Americans. When she warns him, however, he refuses to flee and says that he is going to the church to die alongside the Germans. Before he leaves, he insists that he is not a traitor, but a man serving his country. He has also left a letter on the mantel expressing his love for her and saying goodbye.

When the Americans arrive, Col. Steiner releases the hostages so that they will not be caught in the crossfire. After a violent gunfight, Molly arrives and reveals a secret tunnel out of the church. Col. Steiner, however, slips back into the village and is officially killed while trying to gun down Churchill, who is later revealed to have been a decoy. Devlin and the last surviving member of Steiner's unit are rescued at the seaside by a German E-boat.

Rescuing Steiner

In the later novel The Eagle Has Flown , Steiner is revealed to have survived. Devlin, who is hiding in Lisbon and planning to escape to America, is persuaded by SS Gen. Walter Schellenberg, then chief of the Ausland-SD , to rescue Steiner from the Tower of London. After they return to Germany, Devlin and Steiner prevent Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler from seizing control of the Reich. In the aftermath, Himmler orders Schellenberg to murder them. Instead, Schellenberg arranges their escape to the neutral Irish Free State. The novel ending states that Devlin now lives in a cottage in County Mayo and that he and Steiner remain friends.

Other appearances

As well as appearing in The Eagle Has Landed and The Eagle Has Flown , Devlin also appears as a major character in the Higgins novels Touch the Devil and Confessional. In other novels, Devlin has made cameo appearances as a mentor to Sean Dillon (in Drink with the Devil, The President's Daughter and Day of Reckoning ) and Martin Brosnan (in Eye of the Storm).

In other media

Film

In the film version of The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Liam Devlin was portrayed by Donald Sutherland. [2]

Television

In the television version of Confessional (1989), Liam Devlin was portrayed by Keith Carradine. [3]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wilhelm Canaris</span> German admiral, 5th head of Germanys military intelligence service

Wilhelm Franz Canaris was a German admiral and the chief of the Abwehr from 1935 to 1944. Canaris was initially a supporter of Adolf Hitler, and the Nazi regime. Following the German invasion of Poland in 1939, however, Canaris turned against Hitler and committed acts of both passive and active resistance during the war.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Otto Skorzeny</span> Austrian Waffen-SS officer (1908–1975)

Otto Johann Anton Skorzeny was an Austrian-born German SS-Obersturmbannführer in the Waffen-SS during World War II. During the war, he was involved in a number of operations, including the removal from power of Hungarian Regent Miklós Horthy and the Gran Sasso raid which rescued Benito Mussolini from captivity. Skorzeny led Operation Greif in which German soldiers infiltrated Allied lines wearing their opponents' uniforms. As a result, he was charged in 1947 at the Dachau Military Tribunal with breaching the 1907 Hague Convention, but was acquitted.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Venlo incident</span> 1939 capture of British MI6 agents by Nazi intelligence services outside Venlo, Netherlands

The Venlo incident, was a covert operation carried out by the German Nazi Party's Sicherheitsdienst (SD) on 9 November 1939, which resulted in the capture of two British Secret Intelligence Service agents five metres (16 ft) from the German border, on the outskirts of the Dutch city of Venlo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Walter Schellenberg</span> German intelligence officer in Nazi Germany

Walter Friedrich Schellenberg was a German SS functionary during the Nazi era. He rose through the ranks of the SS, becoming one of the highest ranking men in the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) and eventually assumed the position as head of foreign intelligence for Nazi Germany following the abolition of the Abwehr in 1944.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jack Higgins</span> British novelist (1929–2022)

Henry "Harry" Patterson, commonly known by his pen name Jack Higgins, was a British author. He was a best-selling author of popular thrillers and espionage novels. His novel The Eagle Has Landed (1975) sold more than 50 million copies and was adapted into a successful 1976 movie of the same title.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Plan Kathleen</span> Unrealised plan by Nazi Germany to invade Northern Ireland

Plan Kathleen, sometimes referred to as the Artus Plan, was a military plan for the invasion of Northern Ireland by Nazi Germany, sanctioned in 1940 by Stephen Hayes, Acting Irish Republican Army (IRA) Chief of Staff.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Heinrich Müller (Gestapo)</span> German police official and head of the Gestapo (1939–1945)

Heinrich Müller was a high-ranking German Schutzstaffel (SS) and police official during the Nazi era. For most of World War II in Europe, he was the chief of the Gestapo, the secret state police of Nazi Germany. Müller was central in the planning and execution of the Holocaust and attended the January 1942 Wannsee Conference, which formalised plans for deportation and genocide of all Jews in German-occupied Europe—The "Final Solution to the Jewish Question". He was known as "Gestapo Müller" to distinguish him from another SS general named Heinrich Müller.

<i>The Eagle Has Landed</i> (novel) Book by Jack Higgins set during World War II

The Eagle Has Landed is a book by British writer Jack Higgins, set during World War II and first published in 1975. It was quickly adapted into a British film of the same name, released in 1976.

<i>Went the Day Well?</i> 1942 British film

Went the Day Well? is a 1942 British war film adapted from a story by Graham Greene and directed by Alberto Cavalcanti. It was produced by Michael Balcon of Ealing Studios and served as unofficial propaganda for the war effort. The film shows a Southern English village taken over by German paratroopers, reflecting the greatest potential nightmare for the British public of the time, although the threat of German invasion had largely receded by that point. The film is notable for its unusually frank, for the time, depiction of ruthless violence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frank Ryan (Irish republican)</span> Irish republican (1902–1944)

Frank Ryan was an Irish politician, journalist, intelligence agent and paramilitary activist. He first came to prominence as an Irish republican activist at University College Dublin and fought for the Irish Republican Army during the Irish Civil War. Ryan fell under the influence of Peadar O'Donnell, an advocate of socialism within Irish republicanism, which resulted in him breaking with the IRA and becoming involved with founding a new political organisation, the Republican Congress, and editing its associated newspaper: An Phoblacht.

Operation Seagull was an Abwehr II/Brandenburger Regiment-sanctioned mission launched in September 1940. The object of the mission was to infiltrate the UK in preparation for Operation Sea Lion.

Operation Osprey was a plan conceived by the German Foreign Ministry and Abwehr II. mid-1942. The plan was an enlargement of Operation Whale. Planning took place in the context of American troops landing in Northern Ireland 26 January 1942, and Hitler's immediate fears surrounding this.

The Irish Republican Army (IRA), a paramilitary group seeking to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and unify Ireland, shared intelligence with the Abwehr, the military intelligence service of Nazi Germany, during the Second World War.

<i>The Unlikely Spy</i>

The Unlikely Spy is a 1996 spy novel written by Daniel Silva, set during World War II.

<i>The Eagle Has Landed</i> (film) 1976 film by John Sturges

The Eagle Has Landed is a 1976 British war film directed by John Sturges and starring Michael Caine, Donald Sutherland, and Robert Duvall.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Devlin (surname)</span> Surname list

O'Devlin is the surname of a Gaelic Irish family of the Uí Néill who were chiefs in the far northeastern of the present-day County of Tyrone, bordering on Lough Neagh and the Ballinderry River. The O'Develins claimed a common descent from Develin. Develin was a scion of that branch of the clan Owen known as the Sons of Erca because of their descent from Muirchertach Mac Erca, grandson of Owen.

<i>The Eagle Has Flown</i>

The Eagle Has Flown is a book by Jack Higgins, first published in 1991. It is a sequel to The Eagle Has Landed.

<i>Abwehr</i> German army intelligence service (1920–1945)

The Abwehr was the German military-intelligence service for the Reichswehr and the Wehrmacht from 1920 to 1945. Although the 1919 Treaty of Versailles prohibited the Weimar Republic from establishing an intelligence organization of their own, they formed an espionage group in 1920 within the Ministry of Defence, calling it the Abwehr. The initial purpose of the Abwehr was defence against foreign espionage: an organizational role which later evolved considerably. Under General Kurt von Schleicher the individual military services' intelligence units were combined and, in 1929, centralized under Schleicher's Ministeramt within the Ministry of Defence, forming the foundation for the more commonly understood manifestation of the Abwehr.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Josef Albert Meisinger</span> SS officer (1899–1947)

Josef Albert Meisinger, also known as the "Butcher of Warsaw", was an SS functionary in Nazi Germany. He held a position in the Gestapo and was a member of the Nazi Party. During the early phases of World War II Meisinger served as commander of Einsatzgruppe IV in Poland. From 1941 to 1945 he worked as liaison for the Gestapo at the German embassy in Tokyo. He was arrested in Japan in 1945, convicted of war crimes and was executed in Warsaw, Poland.

<i>Touch the Devil</i>

Touch the Devil is the 42nd book by British writer Jack Higgins, first published in 1982.

References

  1. 1 2 Higgins, Jack (1998). The Eagle Has Landed. Penguin Books. p. chapter 13. ISBN   1405917520.
  2. "The Eagle Has Landed". IMDb .
  3. "Confessional". IMDb .