Liam Devlin

Liam Devlin
First appearance	The Eagle Has Landed
Created by	Jack Higgins
Portrayed by	Donald Sutherland Keith Carradine
Information
Gender	Male
Occupation	Spy Assassin
Nationality	Irish

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.

Liam Devlin is described as being born in County Down, Northern Ireland, and having attended Trinity College, Dublin. 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".

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.

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.

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