IT IS possible that if Cathy Molohan had not stumbled across the story of Operation Shamrock while researching a PhD in Hamburg University, the President of Germany would not be arriving here tomorrow.

As it is, Ms Molohan (24) from Rathgar in Dublin is "realw looking forward" to meeting President Herzog and talking to the families whose life stories have made up a substantial part of her academic life over the past 2 1/2 years.

After receiving a first class honours degree in European studies from Trinity College three years ago she began a course of study which proved far more intriguing than she first imagined.

Her study of German Irish relations threw up tales of spies being caught undercover in rural Ireland and documents concerning the Dublin based Save the German Children Society.

Searching through the Irish archives - a difficult task even that she was in Hamburg - Ms Molohan discovered further proof that Ireland had played a crucial part in the recovery of Europe, particularly Germany, after the second World War.

"It was a great feeling to find out that all these children had been sent to Ireland and looked after so well when their own parents could not take care of them," she says. "I couldn't believe that I hadn't heard about it before, and everyone I spoke to seemed to be amazed by the scale of the operation.

Even the German embassy here was spurred into action when Ms Molohan phoned them from Germany to see if they had any information. "The embassy began to do their own research and I suppose it has culminated in the commemoration this weekend," she said.

Ms Molohan hopes to get her research published in book form and believes the story of Operation Shamrock is one of the earliest examples of "the close ties that began to form between Europe and Ireland after the war.

"It is such an important story for so many people. It is wonderful that we are commemorating a piece of social history that had been largely unacknowledged for years," she said.