Tuesday, June 30, 2009

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)

4 comments:

  1. Ah, thanks for this one, K! I've been listening to Christy Moore since the Planxty days. He's just released a new CD - Listen - from which I've heard some tunes; the man is still going strong.

    It's good to recognize the international scope of the support for Spain's Republican government and their fight against Nazi-supported Franco and his Falangists. It's interesting that our own American Republicans denounced their Spanish namesakes as godless communists and enemies of western democratic ideals, when they supposedly shared the belief in a people's right to self-rule. Then, of course, consider the source - most of the high-end GOPers of the time financially supported the rise of Hitler and the National Socialists in Germany. Don't forget that on Hitler's declaration of war on the US in 1941, Dubya's grandpa Preston Bush had all his assets frozen and was placed in virtual house arrest because of his support - both moral and financial - for Hitler. Not much has changed, has it?

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  2. Any time, Roy!

    As you might guess, Christy is a national treasure over here. It says something about Ireland that an openly left-wing guy is the country's most popular singer.

    There's a wonderful book by a guy named James Yates about his experiences growing up black in Mississippi, taking part in the great northern migration of African-Americans, and joining the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. It's called From Mississppi to Madrid; you can read some of it here. Highly recommended.

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  3. Me sorprendió ver una canción en inglés con este título

    :)

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  4. LET US ALL CONTINUE TO HONOR THE 15TH INTERNATIONAL BRIGADE BY FIGHTING FASCISM IN EVERY FORM: FOLLOWERS OF HITLER, MUSSOLINI, FRANCO...OR TRUMP CRUZ PALIN OR OUR DOMESTIC MILITIA! LET US ALL PLEDGE TO STOP THEM BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY AND LET US SWEAR "NO PASARA'N"!!!!!!!!!!!!

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