Spanish Civil War
In 1936 O'Donnell happened to be in Barcelona in order to attend the planned People's Olympiad on the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. He joined the Spanish Republican militia that supported the Popular Front government against Francisco Franco's military insurgency in the Spanish Civil War. When he returned to Ireland, he encouraged other republicans to fight for the Spanish Republic - accordingly, IRA men, led by Frank Ryan and some Communist Party of Ireland members joined the International Brigades, where they were known as the Connolly Column (after James Connolly).
This was a very unpopular stance in Ireland, as the powerful Catholic Church strongly supported Franco's Catholic Nationalists. Attitudes to the Spanish Civil War also mirrored the divisions of Ireland's civil war. O'Donnell remarked that the Bishops had condemned the anti-Treaty side in the latter for opposing a democratic government, but were now advocating the same thing themselves. A former comrade of O'Donnell's, Eoin O'Duffy, led an Irish Brigade to fight for the Nationalists.
Read more about this topic: Peadar O'Donnell
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