| From Unity, 11 March 2006 |
International Women’s Day:
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| This year is the seventieth anniversary of the fight against fascism in Spain. It is therefore fitting that International Women’s Day, a day dedicated to international solidarity, peace, and progress, should be held to remember those who fought and died to save democracy in Spain. In the 1930s the forces of fascism were growing when a government was elected in Spain, one that would defend democracy and push forward land and industrial reforms for the benefit of the majority of people. These reforms were not to be, as Franco and his allies from Germany, Italy and elsewhere, tacitly supported by the non-interventionist policy of Britain and France, set their sights on the violation and abolition of democracy. The Soviet Union and Mexico were two of the few countries that helped Spain.
It was in 1936 that women and men throughout the world responded to the needs of the people of Spain and went to join the anti-fascist fight. They came from all countries. Dolores Ibárruri writes (The Autobiography of La Pasionaria, page 253): “We hear a command given in a strange tongue cutting the air like a whiplash. ‘Good God, is this a dream?’ asks a woman, sobbing. The men marching through the streets of besieged Madrid sing ‘The International’ in French and Italian, German and Polish, in Hungarian and Rumanian.” It was the International Brigades who had arrived. The majority of the fighters were men, but women played a crucial role as well. This role is less well documented, but some material is coming to light in recent years. Angela Jackson has written a book that documents and gives an analysis of the role British women played. She was a guest speaker on 8 March in a seventieth anniversary event held in the Belfast Institute of Further and Higher Education. Angela’s book shows the work that women did as nurses, broadcasters, writers, and solidarity workers, collecting food for Spain, and so on—women like Molly Murphy, who incidentally was born on the 8th of March in 1890. Molly’s mother is described as being from Anglo-Irish stock. Molly was born in Leyland, Lancashire, and was active in the Women’s Social and Political Union, and when she moved to Sheffield she became the organiser for the WSPU. In Spain she volunteered to serve as a nurse and left in January 1937. She suffered ill health as a result of her work in Spain. The book is mostly about those women who were against Franco, but there are references to some women who supported the Franco regime, most of whom did not play a leading role. Jackson notes (page 50) that “the absence of women holding prominent positions in some of the best known right-wing groups is apparent in an article published by Labour Research (1938), ‘Franco’s followers in Britain.’ In the article a diagram links the members of the Friends of National Spain to the Cliveden Set and so to the Cabinet, through to the Londonderrys.” She notes that only one woman is mentioned in the “list of inter-connected Lords, Viscounts, Dukes and other prominent men,” and that is Lady Londonderry. Research carried out by Ciarán Crossey and Angela Jackson also mentions a few Irish women who worked as nurses with Franco’s side. Some of the women that Angela writes about have Irish links, as for example Rose Kerrigan, who was born in Ireland. Rose married Peter Kerrigan, who joined the International Brigade. She was active in solidarity work, collecting for Spanish relief. Some details are also given in Michael O’Riordan’s book Connolly Column. He writes about the Spanish Aid Committee formed in Dublin with Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington, renowned for her work in the Irish suffrage movement. Its secretary was Aileen (Bobbie) Walsh, later to be married to Frank Edwards, who went to fight in Spain; other members were Dorothy Macardle, Nora Connolly (James Connolly’s daughter), R. N. (Robin) Tweedy, and Mai Keating. Michael writes (page 36): “In Belfast, a committee was formed around Betty Sinclair, W. H. McCullough, Jack Magougan, and Victor Halley. Harry Midgely . . . Member of the Stormont Parliament and Alderman of the Belfast City Council declared his stand against Franco.” Ciarán Crossey shows the involvement of other Irish women who went to Spain. These included Ruth Ormesby from Sligo, who helped to set up a mobile hospital in 1937 along with English nurses. “They turned four wooden huts which had no electricity or water supply into a hospital.” Ruth was killed in an accident while staying in the Medical Aid flat in Barcelona in April 1938. In two long letters to Ciarán Crossey, John de Courcey confirmed that his wife, Beatrice de Courcey, travelled to Spain in a delegation from Manchester in late 1937 or early 1938. “In 1936 she was living in Manchester, very active in the Anti-Partition movement, which largely split over Spain, sadly, I have to say, the majority taking Franco’s side.” By late 1937 or early 1938 the Manchester pro-republican movement had “collected the money to send a big delegation to Barcelona with a large quantity of medical supplies of which my wife was in charge and various other domestic items to be delivered officially to the Republican government in Barcelona. They went by train via Paris and the east coast of Spain (the west coast line being in Franco’s hands). My wife had learned a little Catalan and a lot about the Catalan political movement and was evidently a great favorite in Barcelona where she spoke several times on the Republican radio to all Spain emphasizing her sympathy as an Irishwoman with the national movements, Catalan, Basque, etc. in Spain. When she got back she spoke on the movements and on what she had seen and experienced in Spain (Barcelona was air-bombed while she was there)—Manchester, Bolton, Liverpool and a particularly big huge one in Bradford.” Katherine Lynch is another Irish woman who appears in a photograph of the returning delegation, December 1938, at Dún Laoghaire. A letter to Tom O’Brien in Spain dated 2 August 1938 says that “Doctor Lynch is now at Perpignan doing some hospital work and she may be useful in getting them [cigarettes] across.” Although Perpignan is in France, she was obviously providing aid for the republican cause and so is included. She spoke at a reception for Father Ramón Laborda in Dublin on 15 April 1937. This was held at 38 St Stephen’s Green, where an exhibition of civil war photos had been on display. Peadar O’Donnell said that Kathleen “did such Trojan work for the Republican cause in critical days when the winning of influential American opinion was so vital.” One piece of information that I received from Ciarán Crossey was the fact that Salaria Kee, who features very strongly in the film Into the Fire (about American women in Spain) and who served as a nurse in Spain, was the only Afro-American woman to go. She was to become Salaria Kee O’Reilly when she married the Irish volunteer John Paddy O’Reilly, taking international solidarity to its heights. Another young woman who went to Spain was Kathleen McColgan. She was a BA graduate of Oxford. She joined the London University Ambulance Unit in February 1937. She served in the Murcia hospital, near Málaga. Kathleen and Frida Stewart, daughter of the dean of Trinity College, Cambridge, arrived with an ambulance donated by miners at Cambuslang. Kathleen McColgan spoke at meetings in Belfast on 23 March 1938 and later in April as a member of the National Joint Committee for Spanish Relief. She spoke of “her experiences in Spain and the problem of Spanish refugees.” The Belfast Weekly News reported: “Miss Kathleen McColgan spoke at the Presbyterian War Memorial Hostel yesterday . . . emphasizing the horrors of the Spanish war by referring to the blockade of Government territory and explaining that Franco had the food producing parts of the country.” The report describes the suffering that the population were facing and the need, “whatever our views—whether for Franco or against—to see that women and children sufferers are looked after.” These details are a small reminder not just of the sacrifices that these women and the International Brigades made but also of the need to continue the fight against fascism. References Dolores Ibárruri, They Shall Not Pass: The Autobiography of La Pasionaria (New York: International Publishers, 1976). Angela Jackson, British Women and the Spanish Civil War (London: Routledge, 2002). Peter O’Connor, A Soldier of Liberty: Recollections of a Socialist and Anti-Fascist Fighter (Dublin: Manufacturing, Services and Finance Union, 1996). Michael O’Riordan, Connolly Column: The Story of the Irishmen who Fought in the Ranks of the International Brigades in the National-Revolutionary War of the Spanish People, 1936–1939 (Dublin: New Books, 1979; reprinted with additional material by Warren and Pell, Pontypool, 2005). William Rust, Britons in Spain: The History of the British Battalion of the XVth International Brigade (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1939; reprinted by Warren and Pell, Pontypool, 2003). Frank Ryan (editor), Book of XV International Brigade (Madrid: War Commissariat, 1938; reprinted by Warren and Pell, Pontypool, 2003). Belfast Weekly News, 23 March 1938. Those interested should also visit the following web sites: • www.connollycolumn.org • members.lycos.co.uk/spanishcivilwar |
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