The Irish Brigade (, "Irish Brigade" ) fought on the
Nationalist side of
Francisco Franco during the
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, link ...
. The unit was formed wholly of
Roman Catholic
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
* Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
* Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...
s by the politician
Eoin O'Duffy
Eoin O'Duffy (born Owen Duffy; 28 January 1890 – 30 November 1944) was an Irish military commander, police commissioner and politician. O'Duffy was the leader of the Monaghan Brigade of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and a prominent figure i ...
, who had previously organised the banned quasi-fascist
Blueshirts
The Army Comrades Association (ACA), later the National Guard, then Young Ireland and finally League of Youth, but best known by the nickname the Blueshirts ( ga, Na Léinte Gorma), was a paramilitary organisation in the Irish Free State, founded ...
and openly
fascist Greenshirts in Ireland. Despite the declaration by the
Irish government
The Government of Ireland ( ga, Rialtas na hÉireann) is the cabinet that exercises executive authority in Ireland.
The Constitution of Ireland vests executive authority in a government which is headed by the , the head of government. The gover ...
that participation in the war was unwelcome and ill-advised, 700 of O'Duffy's followers went to Spain. They saw their primary role in Spain as fighting for the
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
against the
Red Terror of Spanish
anticlericalists. They also saw many religious and historical parallels in the two nations, and hoped to prevent
communism
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a ...
gaining ground in Spain.
Initial involvement
The
Irish Catholic
Irish Catholics are an ethnoreligious group native to Ireland whose members are both Catholic and Irish. They have a large diaspora, which includes over 36 million American citizens and over 14 million British citizens (a quarter of the Briti ...
primate Cardinal
Joseph MacRory
Joseph Cardinal MacRory ( ga, Seosamh Mac Ruairí; 19 March 1861 – 13 October 1945) was an Irish Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church who served as Archbishop of Armagh from 1928 until his death. He was elevated to the cardinalate in 1929. ...
was approached in early August 1936 by the Spanish nationalist Count Ramírez de Arellano, a
Carlist
Carlism ( eu, Karlismo; ca, Carlisme; ; ) is a Traditionalist and Legitimist political movement in Spain aimed at establishing an alternative branch of the Bourbon dynasty – one descended from Don Carlos, Count of Molina (1788–1855) – ...
from
Navarre, for help for the Nationalist rebels. MacRory suggested that O'Duffy was the best man to help, as his politics were supportive and he had organised the enormous Dublin
Eucharistic Congress in 1932. In 1935 O'Duffy had formed the
National Corporate Party
The National Corporate Party () was a fascist political party in Ireland founded by Eoin O'Duffy in June 1935 at a meeting of 500. It split from Fine Gael when O'Duffy was removed as leader of that party, which had been founded by the merger of ...
, a small
fascist group, and hoped that its involvement in Spain would increase its popular vote. He travelled to Spain later in 1936 to meet Franco and Ramírez, promising that 5,000 volunteers would follow him.
Franco's desire for Irish support changed in an opportunist manner. Early in the war, when Franco was one of a group of rebel generals, he felt that encouraging Irish involvement would cement his support from the equally religious-minded
Carlist
Carlism ( eu, Karlismo; ca, Carlisme; ; ) is a Traditionalist and Legitimist political movement in Spain aimed at establishing an alternative branch of the Bourbon dynasty – one descended from Don Carlos, Count of Molina (1788–1855) – ...
groups, and so ensure his leadership of the Nationalists. By December 1936 he was certain of the Carlists' support, and thereafter played down the need for Irish volunteers.
Support for the brigade
Support for Irish involvement was based primarily on the Catholic ethos of most Irish people, as distinct from their opinion on Spanish politics per se. Many ''
Irish Independent'' newspaper editorials endorsed the idea, and on 10 August 1936 it published a letter from O'Duffy seeking assistance for his "anti-Red Crusade". The Catholic Church was naturally on his side. Cardinal McRory stated 'There is no room any longer for any doubts as to the issue at stake in the Spanish conflict…It is a question of whether Spain will remain as she has been so long, a Christian and Catholic land, or a Bolshevist and anti-God one.' Many local government
County Councils
A county council is the elected administrative body governing an area known as a county. This term has slightly different meanings in different countries.
Ireland
The county councils created under British rule in 1899 continue to exist in Irela ...
passed resolutions in support, starting with
Clonmel on 21 August.
However, the Irish government and senior civil servants were dismayed by the Church's militant position on the war in Spain, one official in the Department of External Affairs describing it as 'not very helpful guidance' and worrying about the involvement of Irish citizens in 'a foreign war of this terrible character'. The Irish leader
de Valera remained strictly neutral, and, despite the opposition of the
Fine Gael
Fine Gael (, ; English: "Family (or Tribe) of the Irish") is a liberal-conservative and Christian-democratic political party in Ireland. Fine Gael is currently the third-largest party in the Republic of Ireland in terms of members of Dáil ...
party, but with the support of the Labour Party, signed Ireland up to the multi-national
Non-Intervention Committee
During the Spanish Civil War, several countries followed a principle of non-intervention to avoid any potential escalation or possible expansion of the war to other states. That would result in the signing of the Non-Intervention Agreement in Au ...
in February 1937. In late 1936 de Valera's publicist
Aodh de Blácam
Harold Saunders Blackham ( ga, Aodh Sandrach de Blácam; 16 December 1891–16 January 1951) was an English-born Irish author journalist, and editor. He was associated with 20th century Irish nationalism through movements such as Sinn Féin, ...
wrote "For God and Spain; the Truth about the Spanish War", in support of Franco.
Rallies were also held around the country in support of Franco by a Catholic organisation named the
Irish Christian Front
The Irish Christian Front (ICF) was a Catholic organisation that existed from August 1936 to October 1937. The organisation was founded with the intention of showing support and raising funds for the Nationalist faction of the Spanish Civil War. ...
, including a mass meeting of 40,000 people in Cork city, where some rioting broke out between Republican and pro-Franco supporters.
This support was mirrored outside the
Irish Free State
The Irish Free State ( ga, Saorstát Éireann, , ; 6 December 192229 December 1937) was a state established in December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. The treaty ended the three-year Irish War of Independence between ...
. In the USA the largely Catholic Irish American community was in a minority that supported Franco and the rebels, but a proposal in the
US Congress
The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washin ...
to allow sales of arms to the
Spanish Republic
The Spanish Republic (), commonly known as the Second Spanish Republic (), was the form of government in Spain from 1931 to 1939. The Republic was proclaimed on 14 April 1931, after the deposition of King Alfonso XIII, and was dissolved on 1 A ...
was opposed successfully by a campaign led by the Catholic
Joseph Kennedy
Joseph Patrick Kennedy (September 6, 1888 – November 18, 1969) was an American businessman, investor, and politician. He is known for his own political prominence as well as that of his children and was the patriarch of the Irish-American Ken ...
. In
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...
, support was so strong in the Catholic minority that it largely abandoned the
Northern Ireland Labour Party
The Northern Ireland Labour Party (NILP) was a political party in Northern Ireland which operated from 1924 until 1987.
Origins
The roots of the NILP can be traced back to the formation of the Belfast Labour Party in 1892. William Walker stoo ...
, whose leader
Harry Midgley
Henry Cassidy Midgley, PC (NI), known as Harry Midgley (1893 – 29 April 1957) was a prominent trade-unionist and politician in Northern Ireland. Born to a working-class Protestant family in Tiger's Bay, north Belfast, he followed his father int ...
supported the Spanish Republic. Midgley was greeted at one party meeting with chants of "we want Franco".
Volunteers
In late 1936 some 7,000 men volunteered, of whom about 700 eventually went to Spain. While many of the officers were aligned with O'Duffy's political party, the majority of his force were not
NCP
NCP may refer to:
Science and medicine
* Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia (a temporary name for COVID-19), an outbreak that was officially identified in late 2019.
* HIV-1 nucleocapsid protein 7 (NCp7), a target of zinc finger inhibitors
* Nucleosome ...
members but former Blueshirts still loyal to the general. Some were
former IRA or
National Army men, like O'Duffy veterans of the pro-
Treaty
A treaty is a formal, legally binding written agreement between actors in international law. It is usually made by and between sovereign states, but can include international organizations, individuals, business entities, and other legal pe ...
side of the
Irish Civil War. But many others were young and naive, the Irish Department of External Affairs described them as 'very young men, who have been enticed from their families by the impression that they are going to fight for Christianity'. One author has described some of the Brigade as 'social misfits who saw themselves as the twentieth century's
Wild Geese, and rural lads talked into enlistment by rhetoric from the pulpit. According to Matt Doolan, an ex-brigader, “the Irish Brigade was a very fair cross-section of Irish life of the period, including a number of prominent members of the Old IRA.”
By now Franco was less keen on having an Irish Brigade, and O'Duffy had difficulty persuading him to arrange a ship to transport his men; a ship expected in October was cancelled. 200 travelled to Spain in small groups, and eventually 500 others embarked on the German ship ''Urundi'' at
Galway
Galway ( ; ga, Gaillimh, ) is a city in the West of Ireland, in the province of Connacht, which is the county town of County Galway. It lies on the River Corrib between Lough Corrib and Galway Bay, and is the sixth most populous city on ...
in November 1936. Large crowds gathered to sing ‘
Faith of Our Fathers’ as volunteers were blessed by priests and handed Sacred Heart badges, miraculous medals and
prayer book
A prayer book is a book containing prayers and perhaps devotional readings, for private or communal use, or in some cases, outlining the liturgy of religious services. Books containing mainly orders of religious services, or readings for them are ...
s. One of O'Duffy's associates, Liam Walsh had secured a commitment from
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
to send the ''Urundi'' to pick up the Irish volunteers. It docked at
Ferrol in December 1936.
Training and deployment
![Hotel Alfonso IX e](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Hotel_Alfonso_IX_e.JPG)
From their training base at
Cáceres the volunteers were attached to the
Spanish Foreign Legion
For centuries, Spain recruited foreign soldiers to its army, forming the Foreign Regiments () - such as the Regiment of Hibernia (formed in 1709 from Irishmen who fled their own country in the wake of the Flight of the Earls and the pena ...
as its "XV Bandera" (roughly, "fifteenth
battalion
A battalion is a military unit, typically consisting of 300 to 1,200 soldiers commanded by a lieutenant colonel, and subdivided into a number of companies (usually each commanded by a major or a captain). In some countries, battalions a ...
"), divided in four companies. Their uniforms were German ones dyed a light green, with silver harp badges. Two of their officers, Fitzpatrick and Nangle, were Irishmen who had formerly served as officers in the
British Army
The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...
; O'Duffy suspected that they were actually in the employ of the
British government, and in turn Fitzpatrick considered O'Duffy to be "a shit".
At Cáceres, the Brigade's discipline and in particular their excessive drinking was strongly criticized by their Spanish superiors. There was also dissension between the volunteers and their Chaplain, Father Mulrean, who made himself unpopular due to his public berating of the Irishmen for their 'immoral' behaviour in front of Spanish officers
Many of the volunteers also witnessed mass executions by the machine gunning of captured republicans at Caceres, one recalling, 'we saw General Franco's army executing the Reds in mass groups every morning'.
On 19 February 1937 they were deployed to the
Jarama
Jarama () is a river in central Spain. It flows north to south, and passes east of Madrid where the El Atazar Dam is built on a tributary, the Lozoya River. It flows into the river Tagus in Aranjuez. The Manzanares is a tributary of the Jaram ...
battle area, as part of the right flank at
Ciempozuelos
Ciempozuelos () is a municipality in Spain located in the Community of Madrid. The municipality spans across a total area of 49.64 km2 and, as of 1 January 2020, it has a registered population of 25,104.
Geography
The municipality is located in ...
, but when approaching the front line they were fired upon by a newly formed and allied
Falangist
Falangism ( es, falangismo) was the political ideology of two political parties in Spain that were known as the Falange, namely first the Falange Española de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista (FE de las JONS) and afterwards the Fal ...
unit from the
Canary Islands. In an hour-long exchange of
friendly fire
In military terminology, friendly fire or fratricide is an attack by belligerent or neutral forces on friendly troops while attempting to attack enemy/hostile targets. Examples include misidentifying the target as hostile, cross-fire while en ...
2 Irish and up to 9 Canarians were killed.
Most of the Brigade's time at the front was spent manning the trenches at Ciempozuelos, where, according to one volunteer, 'we never saw the Reds but were often under Red artillery fire'. Casualties due to artillery and mortar fire as well as disease and ill health mounted steadily. In its only offensive action, against the village of Titulcia in a rainstorm, six brigaders were killed and 15 wounded before they retired to their own trenches; the following day the brigade refused to continue the attack and was placed in defensive positions at
La Maranosa nearby. These were the only two incidents the brigade was involved in where fighting took place.
Mixed reputation
As Franco no longer needed the brigade for political reasons, he never sent a second ship for the next 600 volunteers who had assembled in Galway in January 1937. In February, the prospect of more Irish reinforcements arriving was precluded by the de Valera government passing a law prohibiting any more volunteers to leave for Spain to fight for either side.
The brigaders in Spain had a problem coping with oily food and the unaccustomed profusion of good wine. In April 1937 O'Duffy's adjutant Captain Gunning made off with the wages and a number of passports. O'Duffy's men started to nickname him "O'Scruffy" and "Old John Bollocks". One Brigade member noted in his diary that morale was collapsing, 'Bandera cracking up - all men are getting sick & weak, dozens going to hospital each day...great rumours about going home.
Meanwhile after the failed assault on Titulcia, the Francoist general Juan Yagüe wrote to Franco reporting that due to 'the total lack of professional commanders... the military efficiency of this unit is absolutely nil' and recommending that the Irish Brigade be dissolved, with those who wanted to serve in other units accommodated and with the rest repatriated to Ireland.
Withdrawal and reaction
O'Duffy then offered to withdraw his unit, and Franco agreed. The new Foreign Legion general
Juan Yagüe
Juan Yagüe y Blanco, 1st Marquis of San Leonardo de Yagüe (19 November 1891 – 21 October 1952) was a Spanish military officer during the Spanish Civil War, one of the most important in the Nationalist side. He became known as the "Butcher of ...
loathed O'Duffy. Most of the brigade returned to Cáceres and was shipped home from Portugal. On its arrival in late June 1937 in Dublin it was greeted by hundreds, not thousands as expected, and O'Duffy's political career was over. Showing their displeasure with the affair, the volunteers from
County Kerry and from the north of Ireland marched off separately from the main contingent, disassociating themselves from O'Duffy.
By the time Irish pro-Franco volunteers returned to Ireland, there was no longer widespread support for Franco's cause.
Fearghal McGarry
Fearghal McGarry (born 16 November 1971) is an Irish historian specializing in the history of Ireland in the 20th century, currently Professor of Modern Irish History at Queen's University, Belfast.
McGarry is the author of books about Ireland in ...
writes, 'As it dragged on and atrocities such as the German bombing of Guernica, a village in the Catholic Basque region, became known the idea of Franco leading a religious crusade became more difficult to sustain. Also significant was the collapse of the opportunistic pro-Franco lobby. By the summer of 1937 the Irish Brigade had returned in failure and the Christian Front had acrimoniously collapsed under its own internal pressures. Even the Catholic church toned down its pro-Franco stance when it was revealed that the Christian Front had gained control of its national collection for Spain under rather dubious circumstances'.
The losses of the Brigade are not exactly clear. One bandera member cited 35 killed in Spain and 40 more wounded. While another count calculates that ten were killed in action and another 21 died of wounds or disease. Historian Fearghal McGarry writes that 'they left behind them fifteen dead compatriots
ndsix hospitalized legionnaires
The Irish government destroyed its files relating to the Brigade in May 1940.
See also
*
Foreign involvement in the Spanish Civil War
The international response to the Spanish Civil War included many non-Spaniards participating in combat and advisory positions. The governments of Italy, Germany and, to a lesser extent, Portugal contributed money, munitions, manpower and support t ...
*
Irish involvement in the Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War lasted from July 17, 1936 to April 1, 1939. While both sides in the Spanish Civil War attracted participants from Ireland, the majority sided with the Nationalist faction.
Support for the Nationalists
Feeling in Ireland in ...
*
Irish Socialist Volunteers in the Spanish Civil War
*
Connolly Column
The Connolly Column (, ) was the name given to a group of Irish republican socialist volunteers who fought for the Second Spanish Republic in the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War. They were named after James Connolly, the ex ...
*
Ireland–Spain relations
References
{{Reflist, 30em
Irish regiments in European armies
Far-right politics in Ireland
Foreign volunteers in the Spanish Civil War
Military units and formations established in 1936
Military units and formations disestablished in 1937
Military units and formations of the Spanish Civil War