M: Britain's first spymaster was an Irishman who played patriot game

clipped from www.timesonline.co.uk William Melville was born in the Kerry village of Sneem to a publican’s family and fled his roots to forge a stellar career in London as a detective fighting terrorism. When he “retired” in 1903 from the Metropolitan Police at the height of his fame, he went on to establish the forerunner of MI5, providing the inspiration for James Bond’s boss in Ian Fleming’s books. “Melville was referred to by the War Office as M or the Spy-master from almost the beginning,” Andrew Cook, the author of M: MI5’s First Spy-master, said. “Although a Kerryman born and bred, he has been a forgotten figure and we now have an opportunity to illuminate a fascinating history,” Helen O’Carroll, curator at Kerry County Museum, said. “One of the striking issues in the Melville story is the irony that here is an Irish Catholic who was proud of his Irish identity, defending Britain from terrorist threats that included Irish terrorism.

Melville’s most famous exploit was his foiling of the Jubilee Plot of 1887, an assassination attempt on Queen Victoria by Irish republicans. It has since been argued that the attempt was a “dirty war” operation orchestrated by the Government.