In Spanish Trenches: A superb overview of Ireland’s role in a vicious conflict

Historians

Members of the Irish Brigade arriving at North Wall, Dublin, on their return in 1937 from fighting in Spain for General Franco’s forces during the Spanish Civil War. Picture: Getty

HISTORY

In Spanish Trenches: The Minds and Deeds of the Irish Who Fought for the Republic in the Spanish Civil War

By Barry McLoughlin and Emmet O’Connor

University College Dublin Press, €30

Few wars of such complexity have been perceived so simplistically as the Spanish Civil War. Initially the Irish public, swayed by exaggerated accounts of anti-clerical atrocities, saw it as a battle “between Christ and anti-Christ”. They backed Eoin O’Duffy’s farcical crusade to lead ...