Spanish Civil War Veteran Dies

[Patsy McAlister]

Published in The Northern People, the voice of the Workers Party, Autumn 1997, Vol. 22. No 5

Ulster’s last surviving veteran to fight against Franco and fascism in defence of the Republic during the Spanish Civil War died this week.

Paddy McAlister, 88 years of age, passed away this week at Ben Madigan Nursing Home. He is the last Northern Ireland veteran who fought in the International Brigades during the bitter and bloody Spanish Civil War over 60 years ago.

When Franco’s fascist troops invaded Spain in July 1936 with the purpose of overthrowing the young and unstable Republic, Paddy, like so many other idealistic young men and women joined the International Brigades.

Born in 1909 in Lincoln Street, he came through the Fianna to the IRA, which he joined in 1926. Unemployment at home forced him to emigrate to Canada in 1928. In the thirties as the depression worsened in Canada Paddy became involved with the relief strikes of the unemployed in Vancouver, at a time when Protestants and Catholics in Belfast were uniting in the same fight. For taking part in the strikes Paddy was twice jailed in Canada.

The conviction that made him volunteer for a war against fascism in 1937 were born from the economic calamity and political turmoil of the 1930’s. Like so many other young men Paddy McAlister had an experience of deprivation and injustice, especially coming from Belfast’s Lower Falls area.

The young and adventurous Paddy McAlister with some friends sailed from Vancouver to Dieppe, and then transferred by train to Perpignan, where he and his comrades waited to cross the Pyrenees into Spain.

Finally they arrived at the training base in Figueras where they were issued with a uniform of sorts. All those who had arrived from Canada were assigned to the recently formed MacKenzie-Papineau Battalion of the 15th International Brigade.

When the Fascist offensive started on the Aragon front on the 9th March 1938, the Canadian group were moved up. However the battle soon turned into a republic rout. Many of Paddy McAlister’s comrades were slaughtered, and he himself was cut off in a small gully in the Sierra del Cabals with several others. As they attempted to get away, Paddy was hit three times. It was days before he could get hospital treatment, and it was while in hospital that he read of the decision of the Spanish Prime Minister Juan Negrin to order the withdrawal of the International Brigades.

Still recovering form his wounds he arrived in Belfast on Christmas Eve, 1938, not to a hero’s welcome but to suspicion and in some cases abuse. Many nationalists, the Hierarchy of the Catholic Church, Fianna Fail, the Blue Shirts and some members of the IRA all supported Franco during the Spanish Civil War.

However Paddy continued on in active politics getting involved with the civil rights movement, the republican Clubs and becoming a member of the Workers Party. He was appalled at the bitter sectarian divisions and terrorism in Northern Ireland and those who foster and nurture it. And he was echoed this in his own words, “The fight is the same today as it was in the thirties…It’s a class struggle. Religion shouldn’t come into it.”

Notes by C Crossey: In an 1986 article Patsy referred to the time he was shot and said it occured during the Battle of the Ebro, in the summer of 1938. This does make more sense as otherwise Patsy would seem to have been in hospital for nearly 6 months accoring to this article - the announcment of the IB withdrawal being made in Sept. 1938.

Two other pieces about Patsy are available as well.

An letter from his nephew to the Irish Times and an extract from a 1976 Republican Clubs pamphlet on the SCW - there are a few pages about Patsy, "One who came back...PADDY MacALLISTER"

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