Connolly Column

Connolly Column
Lineup	December 1936 to September 1939
Country	Ireland
Armed forces	International Brigades
Strength	Estimated 145

The Connolly Column (Connolly Column) ( Irish Colún Uí Chonghaile ) was a group of Irish volunteers who participated in the Spanish Civil War as part of the International Brigades on the Republican side .

history

At the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, the Irish socialist Peadar O'Donnell was in Barcelona for the opening of the People's Olympics . He joined a militia on the Aragon Front and, on his return to Ireland, mobilized Irish volunteers in support of the Republican Popular Front. Bill Gannon, a former member of the IRA, played an important role in recruiting Irish volunteers. The recruitment of volunteers was also a response to the formation of the Fascist Irish Brigade under the leadership of Eoin O'Duffy .

In December 1936, former IRA officer Frank Ryan secretly led a group of Irish volunteers from the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland to Spain. After a trip through the southern French city of Perpignan, the Irish volunteers underwent basic training under the command of André Marty in Albacete , the assembly point for all international brigadists. The majority of the 80 Irish volunteers were members of the Communist Party of Ireland and the left-wing Republican Republican Congress . The Irish volunteers named themselves Connolly Column . It was named after the Irish trade unionist James Connolly , who was executed in 1916 for his role in the Easter Rising .

Andújarfront

By the end of 1936 there were enough British volunteers to form a company. It numbered 145 men and was assigned to the French La Marseillaise Battalion of the new XIV International Brigade, which was led by the Polish General Walter (Karol Świerczewski). The commandant of the British company was George Nathan . The Irish of the Connolly Column were assigned to this company. On December 24, 1936, the company took the train to the Andújar Front near Cordoba and fought in vain with the XIV International Brigade for the village of Lopera . When the attack failed, André Marty appeared at headquarters and had the commander of the La Marseillaise battalion, Major Gaston Delasalle , tried before a court martial. He was convicted of espionage and shot. Due to anti-British attitudes, some of the brigadists did not join the newly formed British Saklatvala battalion in January 1937 , but the American Lincoln battalion .

Battle of the Jarama

The "Connolly Column" suffered heavy losses in the Battle of Jarama in February 1937. Brigadists Charlie Donnelly, Eamon McGrotty, Bill Henry, Liam Tumilson and Bill Beattie, among others, were killed in this battle. Frank Ryan, seriously wounded in the battle, returned to Ireland to recover. On his return to Spain he became an aide to Republican General José Miaja . He was captured during the Aragon offensive on April 1, 1938 and was transferred from the San Pedro de Cardeña concentration camp to the Miranda de Ebro concentration camp, where he was sentenced to death. However, the intervention of the President of Ireland, Éamon de Valera , allowed the death sentence to be commuted to 30 years in prison. He was handed over to the Gestapo and lived until his death in June 1944 as the IRA's official liaison to the Foreign Office and the Abwehr in Berlin.

Battle of the Ebro

Irish volunteers also took part in the last Republican offensive of the war, the Battle of the Ebro , in July 1938 . The surviving Irish volunteers gradually left Spain from September 1938. According to the memoirs of Irish brigadist O'Riordan, the number of Irish volunteers was 145 and the number of Irish dead was 61.

In art

Christy Moore tells the story of the Connolly Column in his song Viva la Quinta Brigada .

literature

• Michael O'Riordan: Connolly Column: The story of the Irishmen who fought for the Spanish Republic 1936–1939 , Torfaen: Warren & Pell, 2005 (2nd edition, first published in 1979) ISBN 0-9548904-2-6
• Bob Doyle: Brigadista: An Irishman's Fight Against Fascism , Dublin: Currach Press, 2006, ISBN 1-85607-937-6 .
• Fearghal McGarry: Irish Politics and the Spanish Civil War , Cork: Cork University Press, 1999, ISBN 1-85918-239-9 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Hugh Thomas : The Spanish Civil War , Ullstein Verlag, Berlin West 1962, page 271
2. ^ Nicolaus Busch: The Extra-Parliamentary, Republican Movement in Ireland 1925–1945 , GRIN Verlag, 2009, ISBN 9783640478736 , page 53ff
3. ^ Seán Cronin: Frank Ryan. The Search for the Republic , Repsol Publishing, Dublin 1980, ISBN 0-86064-019-1 , pp. 191f.
4. ↑ historyireland.com: The Connolly Column: the story of the Irishmen who fought for the Spanish Republic 1936-1939 , book review of Doyle ED