Irish Labour and Working Class History

The Third Annual George Brown Memorial Weekend takes place in Inistioge, Co. Kilkenny on Friday and Saturday, 25/26 June.

George Brown was the son of Francis Brown from Inistioge and Mary Lackey from Tullogher. George was reared in Manchester during the early decades of the twentieth century. At that time it was an urban area of high unemployment and appalling poverty and deprivation. As a young man, he became very involved in the campaign for the betterment of the rights of workers and their families and by the early 1930s was regarded as the leading member of the British Communist Party in the Manchester region. George’s commitment to working-class activism and democratic principles led to him growing increasingly concerned with the rise of Fascism throughout Europe. When the fledgling Spanish Republic found itself under threat from the forces of Franco, backed by German and Italian military might, he was among the first to enlist in the International Brigade in defence of Spain’s democratically elected government. George Brown arrived in Spain in January 1937 and quickly was to see action. In his efforts to stem the tide of Fascism he paid the ultimate price. He was killed at the Battle of Brunete in the defence of Madrid in July 1937. He was thirty years of age.

[Thanks to Ciarán Crossey of Ireland and the Spanish Civil War for the pamphlet.]

A pdf of the pamphlet, which was first published by the Belfast Executive of Republican Clubs in 1976, is available to download here.

(This is the final post in a six-part series of articles originally written as part of the North West Spanish Civil War Memorial Project, and which appeared in the Derry newspaper, Sunday Journal, in April-May 2006. They are reproduced here with kind permission of the author. All photos courtesy of Ciaran Crossey)

The record in Spain
As with the Irish generally, the north west volunteers reached and departed Spain at different times and, as timing dictated, fought on different fronts, in various sections of the XV International Brigade. The XV was treated as the brigade for English-speakers, though it was not exclusively anglophone. In January 1937 it comprised the (mainly Slav) Dimitrov battalion, the (Franco-Belgian) 6 February battalion, the (American) Abraham Lincoln battalion, and the 16th battalion. In deference to the Irish within it, the 16th was sometimes called the ‘Anglo-Irish’ or ‘English-speaking’ battalion at first, until everyone settled on the shorter title ‘British’, except the continentals, to whom ‘British’ was invariably ‘English’. In November 1937, when new numbers were allocated, the XV Brigade was made up of the 57th (British), the 58th (Lincoln-Washington), the 59th (Spanish), and the Canadian 60th (Mackenzie-Papineau) battalions. Initially it was assumed that the Irish would form part of the British battalion, until in January 1937, in a controversial decision, a number opted to join the Lincolns. The bulk of the Connolly Column would serve with the Lincoln or British battalions, while a few were with the Canadian ‘Mac-Paps’. There is a popular perception that all International Brigaders were heroes of the ‘good fight’. Of course, reality was not as kind or as simple.

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(This is the fifth post in a six-part series of articles originally written as part of the North West Spanish Civil War Memorial Project, and which appeared in the Derry newspaper, Sunday Journal, in April-May 2006. They are reproduced here with kind permission of the author. All photos courtesy of Ciaran Crossey)

Why did they go?
Why would anyone want to join a war in a faraway country, of which he knows little, with no guarantees about conditions of service, or securities in the event of death or disability? We can answer this question at two levels, the personal and the political.

Most International Brigaders were single, working class men in their 20s and 30s from urban, industrial backgrounds. Incomplete evidence on the Connolly Column suggests that volunteers were more likely to come from unskilled rather than skilled occupations. Despite claims in the right wing press that the communists were happy to use anyone as ‘Stalin’s cannon-fodder’, the Brigades would not accept married men. The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) introduced an age limit of 18 years, later raised to 21. There are many examples of men with health problems, or those considered too old, being rejected, or sent home from Spain.

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(This is the fourth post in a six-part series of articles originally written as part of the North West Spanish Civil War Memorial Project, and which appeared in the Derry newspaper, Sunday Journal, in April-May 2006. They are reproduced here with kind permission of the author. All photos courtesy of Ciaran Crossey)

Below is a list of men from Donegal and Tyrone who served in defence of the Spanish Republic. The information is drawn from the same sources cited in part 3 of this series. Again, all additional information and corrections from readers will be gratefully received and acknowledged. I am obliged to Conal Houston for details on Hugh Bonner, and to Brian Curragh for details on his great-uncle, Ben Murray.

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(This is the third post in a six-part series of articles originally written as part of the North West Spanish Civil War Memorial Project, and which appeared in the Derry newspaper, Sunday Journal, in April-May 2006. They are reproduced here with kind permission of the author. All photos courtesy of Ciaran Crossey.)

Below is a list of biographies of the nine volunteers from Derry. The information is drawn mainly from the International Brigades Memorial Archive, Marx Memorial Library, London (which holds the papers of the British battalion); the records of the International Brigades in the Spanish Republican Army, Russian State Archive for Social and Political History (RGASPI), Moscow; Michael O’Riordan, Connolly Column: The Story of the Irishmen who Fought for the Spanish Republic, 1936-1939 (Warren & Pell edition, 2005); Raymond John Quinn, Irish Volunteers for Spain (Belfast, 2004), No Pasaran! International Brigade Commemoration Committee Newssheet (Belfast), and Ciarán Crossey’s website, which has recently been revamped and is now at http://www.geocities.com/irelandscw, an excellent site on Ireland and the Spanish Civil War, and well worth a visit.

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(This is the second post in a six-part series of articles originally written as part of the North West Spanish Civil War Memorial Project, and which appeared in the Derry newspaper, Sunday Journal, in April-May 2006. They are reproduced here with kind permission of the author. All photos courtesy of Ciaran Crossey.)

From the American War of Independence to the American invasion of Iraq, there is a long history of foreign wars intersecting with Irish politics. Each tells us much about Ireland itself. The huge impact on Ireland of the Spanish Civil War, for example, challenges the folk wisdom that Ireland was inward looking before entry into the EEC. In some respects it shows how European Irish mentalities were in the 1930s. Arguably, 21st century Ireland is more Anglo-American.

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(This is the first of a six-part series of articles originally written as part of the North West Spanish Civil War Memorial Project, and which appeared in the Derry newspaper, Sunday Journal, in April-May 2006. They are reproduced here with kind permission of the author.)

The Spanish Civil War began 73 years ago this year on 17-18 July 1936, when General Francisco Franco led a military revolt against the left-wing popular front government.

From the outset, the war had an important international dimension. The Spanish navy remained largely loyal to the government and controlled the straits of Gibraltar. Hitler’s Luftwaffe was vital in transporting key units of Franco’s army from Spanish Morocco across the straits to Spain. Germany, Italy, and Portugal would later send troops, machines, munitions, and advisers to Franco.

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(All images used below are from the excellent Ireland and the Spanish Civil War website.)

On Saturday 19 December 1936, four Waterfordmen made their way to London’s Victoria Station and caught the boat train to Paris. Their true destination was the training base of the International Brigades at Albacete, 264 kilometres south east of Madrid.[2] It was another step in the making of Waterford’s substantial connection with the Connolly Column, the name which has become a blanket term for the Irish who fought for the Spanish Republic. The four – Jackie Hunt, Peter O’Connor, Johnny Power, and Paddy Power – were followed to Spain by Willie Power, younger brother of Johnny and Paddy, Johnny Kelly, Harry Kennedy, Jackie Lemon, John O’Shea, and Mossie Quinlan. The eleventh man, who had been the first from Waterford to join the Brigades, was Frank Edwards.

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