The International Brigades: A Mixed Bag

In Ireland, majority of public and clerical opinion was very much pro-Franco. While 320 men did volunteer with the International Brigades, over 7,000 volunteered to fight for Franco. But what happened with them is actually quite amusing. They were led by a former IRA leader called Owen O'Duffy. So they were kind of very nationalist, anti-communist and defenders of Catholicism. Of the 7,000 volunteers, only 700 of them actually got to Spain. The writer Brendan Bien joked that they were the only army in history to return with more men than they left with. A third of all volunteers, of all international volunteers were killed. And nearly all the rest