Brian Fleming – författare

Heroes in the Shadows focuses on extraordinary examples of heroism during the Second World War away from the battlefield. It specifically considers the actions of individuals in five Allied escape lines set up to help those on the run. The author's research provides the most complete picture of how these routes operated. He also shows the qualities of the people involved, whose courage held out against all kinds of adversity.Diplomats who assisted those on the run, often in defiance of the authorities at home.A rescue organisation in Marseille helping fugitives through Vichy France to the port and on to freedom.A group in Belgium transporting downed airmen through occupied France, over the Pyrenees, through Spain and back to Gibraltar.The community in Assisi that housed and hid fleeing Jews.A Capuchin priest in Marseille and Nice who worked with people from many backgrounds to save Jewish fugitives, then continued his work in Rome.Brian Fleming uses contemporary diaries and memoirs of former POWs and refugees to describe individual experiences within the bigger story of the escape lines. He explains how the lines operated across Europe helping different kinds of persecuted people. Heroes in the Shadows illustrates the consequences of manmade horrors but also the best of humanity in dark times.

«This book is a fascinating addition to the literature on school leadership. It is based on the real-life experience of a long-serving school principal and is a must-read for prospective and serving school leaders and academics everywhere.»(Áine Hyland, Emeritus Professor of Education, UCC)«The author has used his detailed and intricate knowledge of research on school leadership together with his experiences as a long-serving principal to provide us with a comprehensive, illuminating and very readable account of the role and its many challenges. This book is essential reading for current and aspiring school leaders.»(Judith Harford, Professor of Education, UCD) Books on school leadership are usually written from a theoretical viewpoint. The insights that emerge, whilst very valuable, are based on an imaginary school, devoid of distinctive human agency, and located in a context-free setting. However, in the real world leadership is not enacted in a vacuum. This study is set in a school where the author served as principal. He describes the impact of various contextual factors, including policy developments at national level since the 1980s, that had an important effect on a principal’s role and the nature of provision. In the history of Irish education, a book of this nature has never before been written from the perspective of a principal. The author analyses the various theories on leadership, and describes the practice that he and his colleagues devised and implemented in a real life setting. Finally, he explores the thinking of various scholars in an attempt to identify the core elements that are essential for successful principalship.

During the German occupation of Rome from 1942 to 1944, Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty ran an escape organisation for Allied POWs and civilians, including Jews. Safe within the Vatican state, he regularly ventured out in disguise to continue his mission, which earned him the nickname 'the Pimpernel of the Vatican'. Kappler, the Gestapo chief in Rome, ordered him captured or killed. When the Allies entered Rome, Monsignor O'Flaherty and his colleagues had saved over 6,500 lives.