memories of a rebellion without pause.
national |
miscellaneous |
news report 
Friday December 13, 2002 20:30
by -
Irish veteran of the Spanish Civil War Bob Doyle has published his memoires.
Bob Doyle 87, has published in Madrid his memoires of the Spanish Civil War.
Bob Doyle is alive today living in London, thankful to be alive and aware that Franco omitted to sign his death warrant.
So he lives almost by error.
Doyle like 35,000 internationalist brigadeers went to Spain in 1936 to "struggle aginst fascism", he fought on the Madrid front and spent 11 months in the notorious Burgos detention centre. Where he was tortured. Doyle who describes himslef as being a communist "from the age of fourteen to this very day", left Ireland at the age of 22 "tired of living as a slave". He mused on wedneseday at his book launch to an Irish indymedia reporter that the recent disclosures of the Franco regimes executions and opening of the Franco archives is a sign that "Spain is waking again". When asked about Fraga (currently president of the Gallician autonomy and an ex-Franco minster) he declined coherent comment and turned his eyes heavenwards.
Doyle remembers with particularly bitter hatred the priests which he carried from his homeland to Spain he commented
"we were made listen to the mass".
Doyle celebrated like many the death of Franco but he says his true joy was when in 1995 all 35,000 internationalists were awarded citizenship of Spain.
His book is published by Manuel Rivas of Madrid and shall be translated to English in the next year.
Doyle faoght alongside english and french communists and socialists and anarchists to preserve the democratically elected Republican government of Spain.
The nationalist led by fascist general F. Franco won the war with assistance from fascist Italy and Germany.
it all happend a long time ago, and they are all old men now just like Mr Doyle.
they pass their torches.
Comments (2 of 2)
Jump To Comment: 1 2Many working class people from Belfast and northern Ireland, went to aid their Spanish comrades Fight the Fascists in the 1930's. Working class people from the Short Strand, Andytown, Whiterock, New Lodge and also the Shankill, fought alongside their Spanish Republic Anarchist, Trade unionist, socialist and communist counterparts in the battlefields of Andalucia. It was the first stand against Fascism, if the Anarchists, Trade unionists, socialists had won, maybe Hitler, would never have ascended to power in Germany. The world would have been alerted to the evils of Fascism. Some of the International brigade volunteers survived and are now oul lads, grandas and granmas, still living in the Short strand, Whiterock, New Lodge and the Shankill, recounting a dream touched, wrenched from their palms, a sweet taste of heaven on earth, for them there is no going back to tipping their caps and tugging their forelocks to the bosses, the rich and the establishment. The legacy of the Spanish Civil war lives on, in their memories, and through the everyday reality of working class struggle and resistence.
There is also an hour long documentary about Bob Doyle's life, likewise entitled "Rebel Without A Pause", that was made in 1993. I think it was shown in the Ilac Canter Library (they show some good social history stuff occasionally), but can't remember the name of the director.
My first serious knowledge of politics derived from a study in school of the history of anarchism in spain up until their defeat in the counter-revolution. Years later, in Derry, I had the great displeasure of hearing Mick O'Riordan - CPI leader and veteran of the International Brigades) introduce Ken Loach's magnificent "Land and Freedom". Despite a respect for the communists who fought there, I was disgusted at the vicious attack he launched on Loach and the Anarchists; the full practice of stalinist falsification of history was in the house. I look forward to reading Bob Doyle's biography and hope that he has made a more honest reckoning with the past.
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