Is the Irish personality perfectly suited to secret service roles?

Thelonious Monk

This guy was amazing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Chapman

Caught by the Nazis in the Channel Islands while locked up for being a crim, double agent, spy schools in Norway, V1 rockets, 2 fiances at the same time, and then got a movie made about him. Ok he's not Irish but worra ledge.

Yurt2

topper75 wrote: »

Hold on - seeing what somebody is writing in their notebook is Jason Bourne level stuff in itself.

plot twist: your 'friend' isn't who they said they were.

Get a set of their prints and come back to us. We need to know who they are really working for.

the purple tin

COVID wrote: »

What about our penchant for the porter?

That would be a point in our favour.
An important part of spy work is getting somebody pissed enough to blab their mouth off while you remain just sober enough to remember what they said.

No self-respecting Saville Row tailor would make a suit or tuxedo with boot cut trousers.

L1011

Irish diplomats are considered to have the ultimate in soft power, able to make unofficial deals and line stuff up in advance of the political end of the setup being seen to do it in public. If we needed a secret service we wouldn't be short of suitable candidates

ILoveYourVibes

jetsonx wrote: »

Is the Irish personality perfectly suited to secret service roles?

Contrary to popular belief, most secret service organisations don't actually want a a James Bond type character working for them. Their smoothness would make them too conspicuous.

Instead they want a normal person as possible who has an easy going dis-arming charm along with high emotional intelligence. The also want people with a calm disposition but a steely determination underneath.

Easy going charm comes naturally to the Irish. Our national temperament is relatively calm and we are emotionally intelligent. Moreover, we don't have the historical baggage of other nations (like those next door, ahem...) And according to international workplace studies, the Irish are a fairly motivated bunch.

So, does this make the Irish perfectly suited to undercover secret service jobs?

How many languages does the average Irish person speak with no accent?

Without that skill ...bam as soon as you speak that person knows a huge amount about you.

People who grow up in bi -lingual environments and can fit in and be accepted as a local in a few environments are perfect spies.

Its why Irish intelligence was better at infiltrating the IRA. They could pass.

It is why spies working against ISIS have to be of Arab descent. They have to culturally physically and linguistically pass for people in the area.

There are cultural attaches etc MOST of them who are from an enemy country ..are spies ...but its like both countries know ...and are both doing it ..its like an open secret ...they don't usually know or learn anything THAT important.

Also there are lots of different kinds of spies.

If you are required to spy on a nuclear lab ...you are going to be useless without a university science background. People always think a spy needs to be good with people and gaining trust. But what is they spy doesnt actually NEED information from people at all but needs to be able to understand scientific information fast and easily?


A lot of the time spies have to be of a specific gender also. As they have to infiltrate or gain the trust of someone or a group that prefers the company of a certain gender. If you want to gain the trust of the wife of a diplomat ..you have to send a woman.

Intelligence agencies just use people. There is no such thing as a better personality type for being a spy. They just use who they need at the time. There was a huge recruitment drive for spies of asian or arab descent who could speak arabic after 9/11. They had to look and SOUND the part. They had to understand the culture.

We often say ...you can spot an Irish guy abroad. That is a sure sign ...he is not going to be a good spy.


The skill with languages ...is a must ...

Take 'Jack Barsky' ....a KGB agent who went as a sleeper agent to the US.

He was given training in english and skills to avoid surveillance for years in East Germany. His English was constantly under evaluation by Americans who had defected and linguists. Think professor Higgins in my fair lady.

Even THEN when he arrived in the states he realized his training had been poor. He stood out from Americans as not being 'one of them'.


Personally i don't think many Irish people could be a spy. Except maybe in NI.

Cultural attaches ...diplomats etc ..its generally accepted that they ARE spies and everyone just is polite about it. But they rarely gain important secrets etc.

A country where they have many languages ....many cultural backgrounds ....etc would make good spies. People are the resource in the spy game.


In fact NKVD .precursor to the KGB..would recruit people from every nation who was sympathetic to the soviet cause. THey realized they needed people of every language ...every race etc. Sorge and kim Philby were both part of the NKVD. Kim Philby ....was also famously involved in the CIA and MI 6. He was british...but his loyalty was with communism.

The best spy is someone FROM that country.

ILoveYourVibes

topper75 wrote: »

Quite a few 'James Bond' wanabees were sent here over the centuries. They didn't get to go home.

Sad really. Nobody is willing to tell to this day what became of Robert Nairac for instance.

That is because MOST agents ...stick out like a sore thumb in reality ...but contrary to popular belief ..most countries don't kick them out when they are found ..first they worry about their own people elsewhere ..even if they are not spies ...but also its better to feed the agent false info than simply get rid of them.

What happened to Nairac ...was amateurish. Let him think he infiltrated republicans ...feed him false info.

AS I said ..90% of spies are identified soon after deployment. The smart ones know this ..and play along.

the purple tin

There was some Irish priest in America years ago who was spying for the spooks for ages, it never came out until after he died.
American missionaries are able to travel all over the world especially south and central America.

Edgware

People think that spying is all James Bond, Richard Burton and Checkpoint Charlie stuff. That day is gone. Most spying now is done by natives to the country who know what needs to be feeded to the highest purchaser

Stateofyou

jill_valentine wrote: »

UNBELIEVABLY suspicious of outsiders too. A friend of mine worked in Kerry on a contract for about two years, and one of the locals took down the car's reg in his notebook every single time she parked on the road near his house until the very last week she was there.

:pac: That gave me a great laugh

Capt'n Midnight

Edgware wrote: »

People think that spying is all James Bond, Richard Burton and Checkpoint Charlie stuff. That day is gone. Most spying now is done by natives to the country who know what needs to be feeded to the highest purchaser

It was ever thus as Sun Tzu pointed out 25 centuries ago.


There are five classes of spies

(1) Local spies; - using the locals

(2) inward spies; - getting officials to work for you by money or blackmail or using their resentment if they were conscripted or convince them to join the wining side to save their skins.

(3) converted spies; - using the enemy's spies

(4) doomed spies; - disinformation

(5) surviving spies. - our agents who come back with the intel.
"Your surviving spy must be a man of keen intellect, though in outward appearance a fool; of shabby exterior, but with a will of iron. He must be active, robust, endowed with physical strength and courage; thoroughly accustomed to all sorts of dirty work, able to endure hunger and cold, and to put up with shame and ignominy."