Origins
On the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in July 1936, the Irish Republican and socialist, Peadar O'Donnell was in Barcelona for the "People's Olympics" - held in opposition to the Olympic Games being held in Berlin under the Nazi regime. O'Donnell sympathised with the anarchist workers militia that defeated the attempted military coup in the city and joined one of their militias on the Aragon front.
On his return to Ireland, O'Donnell urged the formation of Irish volunteer regiments to support the Popular Front government. Most of the Irish volunteers came from the Irish Republican Army (IRA) or the more left-wing group, the Republican Congress. Some of the IRA leadership had been oriented towards left-wing and often communist politics since the late 1920s, so the sympathy of many of its members with the Spanish Republic was unsurprising.
Read more about this topic: Connolly Column
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