Spanish Civil War and Second World War
O'Riordan joined the Communist Party of Ireland in 1935 while still in the IRA and worked on the communist newspaper Socialist Voice. In 1937, following the urgings of Peadar O'Donnell, several hundred Irishmen, mostly IRA or ex-IRA men, went to fight for the Spanish Republic in the Spanish Civil War with the XVth International Brigade. They were motivated in part by enmity towards the 800 or so Blueshirts, led by Eoin O'Duffy who went to Spain to fight on the "nationalist" side in the Irish Brigade. O'Riordan accompanied a party led by Frank Ryan. In the Republic's final offensive of July 25, 1938, O'Riordan carried the flag of Catalonia across the River Ebro. On August 1, he was severely injured by shrapnel on the Ebro front. He was repatriated to Ireland the following month, after the International Brigades were disbanded.
In 1938 O'Riordan was offered an Irish Army Commission by the Irish Free State but chose instead to train IRA units in Cork. As a result of his IRA activities, during the Second World War, or the Emergency as it was known in neutral Ireland, he was interned in the Curragh internment camp from 1939 until 1943 where he was Officer Commanding of the Cork Hut and partook in Máirtín Ó Cadhain's Gaelic League classes as well as publishing Splannc (Irish for "Spark," named after Lenin's newspaper).
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