Christy Moore: Viva La Quinta Brigada

SONG Viva La Quinta Brigada

WRITTEN BY Christy Moore

PERFORMED BY Christy Moore

APPEARS ON Ride On (1999), Collection, Part 2 (2006), Live In Dublin 2006 (2007)

When the Spanish Civil War began in 1936, the hierarchy of the Catholic Church in Ireland supported Francisco Franco's bid to overthrow the legally elected Republican government. An Irish brigade comprised mainly of Blueshirts, a fascist group inspired by Mussolini's Blackshirts, formed and went to Spain to fight in Franco's army.

Meanwhile, Frank Ryan, a prominent Irish Republican, urged support of the Spanish Republican government. This was not a cut-and-dried matter: Irish antipathy toward England remained great, and many Irish sympathized with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy on the questionable grounds that the enemy of their enemy was their friend. Ryan himself ended his days in Germany as a repatriated prisoner of war.

As an anti-Fascist, Ryan led recruitment of the Connolly Column, a combination of Irish leftists, socialists, idealists, and IRA rivals of the Blueshirts. Once in Spain, the Connolly Column was attached to the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, the American volunteers who served in the Spanish Civil War. (Eleven years ago, I shook hands with a surviving member of the brigade.) The brigade fought with distinction at the Battle of Jarama, a brutal and unsuccessful three-week attempt by Franco's forces to disrupt communications between Madrid and the temporary Republican capital of Valencia.

In 1999, the Irish folk singer Christy Moore recorded his stirring account of the sacrifices made by the Connally Column, many of whom were killed in action or captured (including Ryan, who repatriated to Germany, where he died in 1944). Of particular note in Moore's lyrics is the way he contrasts the Church hierarchy ("the Bishops") who stayed in Ireland with the working ministers of different denominations ("A Church of Ireland pastor" and "a brave young Christian brother") who went to Spain and died fighting. Moore also works in the line "the olives were bleeding," reputedly the dying words of poet Charlie Donnelly.

"Viva La Quinta Brigada" memorializes a worthy effort in support of a lost cause, a not atypical Irish theme. Moore evokes the lineage of Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie, as well as the narrative tradition of Irish folk songs and poems. Its larger context is the difficulty of the long and arduous trek to freedom, a cause espoused by Irish poets and singers for over 400 years. When Moore calls on us to "remember them tonight," he demands that we not forget the meaning of freedom as fought for by the Connolly Column -- an ongoing communal struggle for public liberty -- as well as the sacrifice necessary to attain it and the vigilance required to keep it.

--Citizen K.

LYRICS

Ten years ago I saw the light of morning
A comradeship of heroes was laid
From every corner of the world came sailing
The Fifteenth International Brigade.

They came to stand beside the Spanish people
To try and stem the rising fascist tide
Franco's allies were the powerful and wealthy
Frank Ryan's men came from the other side.

Even the olives were bleeding
As the battle for Madrid it thundered on
Truth and love against the force of evil
Brotherhood against the fascist clan.

Chorus:
Viva la Quinta Brigada,
No Pasaran, the pledge that made them fight
Adelante was the cry around the hillside
Let us all remember them tonight.

Bob Hilliard was a Church of Ireland pastor
From Killarney across the Pyrenees he came
From Derry came a brave young Christian Brother
And side by side they fought and died in Spain.

Tommy Woods age seventeen died in Cordoba
With Na Fianna he learned to hold his gun
From Dublin to the Villa del Rio
He fought and died beneath the Spanish sun.

(Chorus)

Many Irishmen heard the call of Franco
Joined Hitler and Mussolini too
Propaganda from the pulpit and newspapers
Helped O'Duffy to enlist his crew.

The call came from Maynooth, "support the Naziss"
The men of cloth had failed yet again
When the Bishops blessed the Blueshirts down in Galway
As they sailed beneath the swastika to Spain.

(Chorus)

This song is a tribute to Frank Ryan
Kit Conway and Dinny Coady too
Peter Daly, Charlie Regan and Hugh Bonar
Though many died I can but name a few.

Danny Boyle, Blaser-Brown and Charlie Donnelly
Liam Tumilson and Jim Straney from the Falls
Jack Nalty, Tommy Patton and Frank Conroy
Jim Foley, Tony Fox and Dick O'Neill.

(Chorus repeated)