This week we are able to print another letter from a member of the gallant Irish Column fighting for freedom in Spain. Breathing the very spirit of these young Irishmen, the letter is written by Padraig de Stannligh to his father, Padraig, an ex-IRA man and Gaelic League, was not a member of any political party when he volunteered for Spain. Here is his letter:
“I came here to fight not only for the Spanish people but for the workers of the world against Fascism, not forgetting O’Duffy and his crowd. If the fascists by any miracle win it would mean first the death knell of democracy throughout the world and the finish of Irish nationalism. That’s why I came over here, because I understood this from the very beginning. In a few month’s time we shall be writing Robert Emmet’s epitaph: ‘When my country takes its rightful place among the nations of the earth, then and not till then let my epitaph be written.’ (Emmet) If James Connolly was alive today and saw what was going on throughout the world, especially in Spain, what would he do? He’d unite all those good Irish fighters, all of them, and he’d shove the fascists into the sea wherever he found them. We’ll do that. And if any of them wash ashore in Dublin Bay let them [know] that no murderers of women and children have a place in the fair land of Eirinn.
The morale of the people here, even to the smallest children, is of the highest. The people smile and welcome you, greet us as their deliverer, and even cry about you when you leave. That is not the way they treat the fascists, and that’s why Franco and his cutthroats will never conquer Spain, nor O’Duffy Ireland. You read in the Irish Independent what the Spanish Government is supposed to be doing. But what about Franco and his German and Italian hired assassins and conscripted ‘volunteers’, who are afraid to meet soldiers in the field and sneak behind the lines in their aeroplanes, killing women and children, innocent all of them. This I have seen with my own eyes. We can’t lose, we won’t lose, and when your Pattie comes marching home again he’ll have stories to tell that will put the lie to the things that have been told to the people at home by papers owned by Irish capitalists, fascist liars.”
