An Cosantóir

17 THE IRISH IN THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR Republic, who became known as the "Connolly Column." Ironically even though the Connolly Column was the smaller contingent, their combat role was more significant than O' Duffy's Irish Brigade, the latter characterized by in-fighting and who were in turn held in poor regard by the Francoists. In fact, they witnessed little or no combat and were in effect perceived as a liability by the Nationalists and were ultimately disarmed and ignominiously deported from Spain. While both sides were stationed near each other across no-man's land during the bloody Jarama front campaign, east of Madrid in February 1937, they never crossed swords. The Connolly Column was subjected to the greater heat of battle losing a third of their number. It was at this Battle that the Republican Charles Donnelly uttered the now iconic words "that even the olives are bleeding." Ultimately Generalissimo Franco with decisive air support from the German Condor Legion was to be the victor. The Condor's bombing of the Basque town of Guernica in April 1937 was made infamous in an iconic painting by Pablo Picasso and augured the horrors of aerial bombing against civilians during the Second Sord War. Franco's ultimate victory heralded an uninterrupted iron rule of Spain until his death in 1975 at which Spain transitioned, not always smoothly, to democracy. No more than the Irish experience, the events of 1936- 39 have left a deep visceral psychological scar on the psyche of Spanish society, witnessed even at this remove by the reinternment of Franco's body in October 2019 by the Government of Pedro Sánchez. Giles Tremlett (2020) in his work makes the point that the conflict under the searing sun of the Iberian Peninsula and desiccated landscape of battlefronts such as the Jarama campaign, were to be the great dress-rehearsal for what was to come between 1939 and 1945. What was to be the coda for this tragic epoch from an Irish perspective? De Valera's support for non-intervention, although arguably the most sensible foreign policy option, was difficult to defend in the face of the widespread Irish belief that Spain was a war between Christianity and Communism. De Valera maintained strict neutrality, and, despite the opposition of the Fine Gael party, but with the support of the Labour Party, signed Ireland up to the multi- national Non-Intervention Committee under the aegis of the League of Nations. But the League even at this juncture had manifestly failed to prevent aggression by revanchists powers such as Italy and Nazi Germany throughout the 1930s. And what of the dramatis personae of this epoch event? O' Duffy returned to Ireland from Spain in disarray and a broken man. He wrote a book Crusade in Spain (1938) with distinct anti-Semitic undertones and had a brief dalliance with the German Spy Herman Goertz who had been parachuted into Ireland by German Military Intelligence, the Abwehr in 1940. Even more perversely he approached the German Delegation in Dublin in 1943 to help organise an "Irish Legion" to fight against the Bolsheviks on the Eastern Front, irrespective of the morality of such a preposterous adventure; it was indicative of a man with a then serious alcohol addiction. He died in relative obscurity in November 1944 aged just 54 and was granted a State funeral. As for his nemesis Frank Ryan, after being captured by a contingent of Mussolini's pro-Nationalist Legion in Spain, lucky to avoid the firing squad as many of his comrades had succumbed, he was allowed 'escape' under the auspices of the Abwehr. In a bizarre twist of history, this charismatic and arguably iconic figure within militant Irish republicanism, who had fought with some considerable degree of courage and fortitude against Fascism, boarded a U-Boat in August 1940 as a German-IRA go-between as part of planned operations in Ireland to support the IRA; designed specifically to facilitate a Nazi German victory. He was accompanied by the IRA putative Chief of Staff Séan Russell who died on board the submarine of a perforated ulcer during the voyage. The mission was aborted, and Russell subsequently died in Dresden in 1944 from pleurisy and pneumonia, arguably a legacy of the harsh and spartan conditions that he had endured, both as a combatant and prisoner in Spain. It is an interesting counterfactual of Irish history as to how his mission would have evolved had he successfully landed in Ireland and evaded capture by the Irish police. Did Ryan, having witnessed and fought as a 'Brigadeista' against Fascism in Spain, really believe that the Nazis would not ultimately impose a cruel tyrannical yoke in Ireland as they had done throughout occupied Western Europe were they to have prevailed in the then titanic struggle engulfing Europe? It is also perhaps ironic that the departure from Irish shores of the two disparate groups, arguably played a role in the long road of "taking the gun out of Irish politics" and perhaps unintentionally help defuse the then febrile Free State body politic. Separated ideologically and politically in life, both O' Duffy and Ryan, who had once fought as brothers-in-arms in the Irish War of Independence before the bitter Civil war divide, are ironically today buried not far from each in Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin; but far from the Jarama battlefield where once under a Spanish sky, even the olives were bleeding. This article was inspired by the book 'The International Brigades: Fascism, Freedom & the Spanish Civil War' by Giles Tremlett. v Frank Ryan and John Robinson, circa 1936 Frank Ryan posing for a photograph with Ernest Hemingway Spanish General Francisco Franco who ruled over Spain from 1939 to 1975 as a dictator

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