Local Dundalk man meets German President to commemorate Operation Shamrock

Local Dundalk residents who originally arrived in Ireland after the Second World War have met the German President as he visited Ireland last week.

Heinz Kampes, a local man living on the Carrick Road in Dundalk, originally arrived in Ireland as part of Operation Shamrock, where 50 German refugees made Ireland their home in the years following World War 2.

Mr Kampes met with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier alongside his son, Franz, on Thursday, October 28th.

According to a tweet by the Irish Embassy in Berlin, Mr Kampes spoke with the President about their experience arriving and settling into Ireland under Operation Shamrock.

In an Irish Times article from May 1997, Mr Kampes expressed that people across Ireland had been welcoming to the German children as they arrived into the country.

“‘Ireland has been so good to us,’ he said, in his unmistakable Co Louth accent,” reads the Irish Times article.