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Irish Examiner
24-05-2025
- Politics
- Irish Examiner
Clodagh Finn: An unflinching study of a warts-and-all ‘hero'
'I've been singing Bob Hilliard's name for 40 years, and now we finally have his story,' Christy Moore writes on the back of a new biography of a man who packed several lifetimes into one. Robert Hilliard was — and this is not an exhaustive list — a member of the prosperous Hilliard family in Killarney, a Protestant, a fierce republican, a skilled debater, an Olympian boxer, a journalist, a Church of Ireland priest, and a courageous member of the International Brigades who died fighting Franco when he was just 32. It was his death after the battle of Jarama during the Spanish Civil war in 1937 that inspired the honorary mention in Christy Moore's song, 'Viva la Quinta Brigada', although Robert Hilliard made an impression wherever he went. At Trinity College, one student journal noted that 'he sometimes appeared as a cross between a hornpipe and a fugue, often of a wild nature.' HISTORY HUB If you are interested in this article then no doubt you will enjoy exploring the various history collections and content in our history hub. Check it out HERE and happy reading Editor of The Irish Times Bertie Smyllie recalled his wild, unconforming nature when he wrote how Robert once boasted to him that he had voted 17 times before breakfast on the day of polling in the 1922 general election. Robert Hilliard did not coin the phrase 'Vote early and vote often' but, while working as a copywriter in London a few years later, he said he came up with the advertising slogan, 'Great Stuff This Bass'. My generation will be more familiar with the 1970s slogan, 'Ah, That's Bass', made famous by The Dubliners. It entered the vernacular as a playful phrase that meant something hit the spot, but none of the descriptions outlined so far go anywhere near unravelling the myth that grew up around Robert Hilliard. His granddaughter, Lin Rose Clark, for instance, was acquainted with a very different version of the exuberant man who made his fellow International Brigade members laugh. For her, he was the man who walked out on his wife and their four children, first to go to London and then to fight in Spain. 'There has always been a Robert Martin Hilliard-shaped gap in our family,' she writes. She discovered it, aged eight, after her teacher showed slides of Spain, lighting up the white screen in the classroom with palm trees, blue sea and vivid sunshine. When Lin asked her mother, Deirdre Davey, if the family could visit Spain, her mother flinched and said they would not be going to Spain, because her father had died there when she was aged eight. Lin Rose Clark didn't quite understand it at the time but, in that moment, she sensed the inconsolable grief that accompanied her mother throughout her life. What tormented her mother was that her father had been loving and hands-on, yet he left his family. Many years later, Lin set out to find out why. The result of her excavation — that's the word for it because her deep research has that quality to it — is Swift Blaze of Fire, a beautifully written biography that offers us a complete and compassionate portrait of the man himself. As she puts it: 'My grandfather was no icon, either of heroism or shiftless betrayal, but a flesh and blood human being, an everyman shaped by his times … trying to chart a course through an extraordinary period.' It is refreshing to read an account that reaches beyond the myths and shows that history with its big 'H' also inveigles its way into the lives and loves of the people who live through it. While she teases out the political and historical, what really stands out for me is their combined effect on the personal. Lin Rose Clark does something else too — she writes the women back into the story. Ellen Hilliard who walked from Killarney to Cork, during the Famine years, to buy stock for her shop in Killarney. Picture: courtesy of Lin Rose Clark She starts with the family account of the redoubtable Ellen (née Martin), who married into the Hilliard family in 1846, and regularly walked across the Derrynasaggart mountains from Killarney to Cork and back, during the Famine years, to buy stock for the small shop she ran with her husband Richard. That shop, R Hilliard and Sons on Main Street, Killarney, went on to become a booming commercial success. It traded as a department store — 'the Brown Thomas of Killarney ladies', some called it — for a century and half. The building is now owned by a different family and it is a bar and restaurant, but the name is still above the door, and its history is remembered — and celebrated. But back to the beginning, if Ellen Hilliard's business acumen and grit are outlined in admirable detail so too is the fact that she disapproved of her son William's Catholic wife Frances, forcing both of them to sail for New Zealand. William never saw his parents again. Lin Rose Clark does not shy away from telling the whole family story, warts and all. Too often, in the accounts of men's wartime heroics in particular, the impact on those left behind is omitted, or overlooked. Not here. As a pastor, Robert Hilliard earned just £25 a year but it was his family who bore the brunt when he left for London in 1935. His daughter Deirdre remembers the milkman calling to be paid but being turned away. She overheard him saying that he thought the money would be safe as he was dealing with 'a man of the cloth'. 'I was only six and a half, but I felt most ashamed and guilty and what my mother felt I can only imagine,' she said. There's a heart-wrenching letter from Robert's young son Tim, too, appealing to him to come home: 'You ot [ought] to kum back to us… why dont you kum and hav fun with us. Love From Timothy Hilliard.' And there is a photograph showing both children, looking miserable, keeping a daily vigil in the doorway of their rented cabin hoping to hear their father approach on the motorbike that he bought on credit. Rosemary Hilliard, Robert's wife, with her two samoyeds. Their mother, Rosemary, meanwhile, moved from one ill-equipped rented place to another. She had come to motherhood very young and, as her granddaughter writes, 'for the most part unwillingly. Now she was trapped inside the oppressive expectations which society imposes on wives and mothers, expectations that ground her down although she never challenged them.' Yet, willing or not, nobody could thrive in some of the places she found herself, such as in the damp cottage near Lisburn which had no running water, no bathroom and no kitchen. Cooking was done on a paraffin stove or using a hook hung over the fire. But there are no pointing fingers or sense of blame in this unsentimental yet compassionate account. It simply tells the story in the round, and in doing so offers a template on how to write women into history. To end on an uplifting note, Robert Hilliard's last postcard to his wife includes this line: 'If fascism is not defeated in Spain and in the world, it will be war, and hell for our kids.' As his granddaughter says: 'Perhaps the best tribute we can pay to him and those, like him, who went to fight fascism in Spain is to stand up against these things in our own day and say 'No pasarán!"
ABC News
20-05-2025
- Politics
- ABC News
The Australians who fought General Franco and his forces in the Spanish Civil War
In 1936, as Spain descended into a bloody civil war, the left-wing Republican side put out an international call for help. They were fighting against the right-wing Nationalists, who were led by the country's dictator-to-be General Francisco Franco. Thousands of people travelled to Spain to join the fight as part of the International Brigades, including the likes of British writer George Orwell. Among the less high-profile recruits was a small band of Australian men and women, who left their lives in Australia for what they saw from afar as a great ideological battle. Australia has a long and complicated history of foreign fighters, including most recently people travelling to Ukraine. But, as their admirers boast, the Australians of the International Brigades can claim a significant title. "They were the first Australians to fight fascism," Michael Samaras, author of Anti-Fascists: Jim McNeill and his Mates in the Spanish Civil War, tells ABC Radio National's Late Night Live. The 1930s was a tumultuous decade for Spain. The country's monarchy collapsed and there was a shift to democracy. But with this, social and political tensions flared. It culminated in Franco's military coup against the democratically elected government, which kickstarted the civil war. The right-wing Nationalists received aid and troops from Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, while the left-wing Republicans were assisted by the Soviet Union and the volunteers of the International Brigades. Samaras says that about 65 to 70 Australian men and women joined the International Brigades or other parts of the Republican side. But they did so in an unofficial and often clandestine way. "They went against what the government of the day was doing … They weren't allowed to go," Samaras says. "Australia's government in the 1930s was a government of appeasement. We were following Britain's policy to appease the dictators in Europe. With the Spanish Civil War, we followed a policy of non-intervention." This meant the difficulties for these Australians started long before the battlefield. "They went under false names. They went illegally. They stowed away [on ships]," Samaras explains. Among the Australians who travelled to Spain was Wollongong steelworker and outspoken communist Jim McNeill. McNeill was a prominent "Wobbly" in the 1920s — that is, a member of the Industrial Workers of the World, a radical, international working-class organisation. He later joined the Communist Party of Australia. As in other countries at the time, Australian leftist groups clashed — sometimes violently — with right-wing groups like the New Guard, which was the largest fascist organisation in Australia's history. "[McNeill] was very much at the forefront of fighting the New Guard," Samaras says. And this included actual fights, with McNeill reportedly shot at in one clash between the groups in the Sydney suburb of Drummoyne. After the Spanish Civil War broke out in July 1936, McNeill was determined to heed the call. He later said he made this choice after his experiences with the "vicious" New Guard in Australia, and that Spain "was the first place to organise against the fascists or Nazis, Mussolini or Hitler". But McNeill didn't have the money to get to Spain, so he stowed away on a ship from Melbourne to England. McNeill then travelled to France and trekked across the Pyrenees mountains into Spain where he joined, trained with and then fought for the International Brigades. The Australian fought in the Battle of the Ebro, the longest and largest battle of the Spanish war. He got injured, went missing and was presumed dead. But McNeill survived the war and returned home to Wollongong. Australian men like McNeill either joined as troops or worked in logistical roles, while women served as nurses, doctors, translators and in administrative support. Samaras says around 16 Australians were killed in action including Ted Dickinson, a close friend of Jim McNeill and fellow political firebrand. Dickinson fought in the Battle of Jarama, where he was captured and then executed by Franco's forces. According to a fellow soldier, among his final words he reputedly said: "If I had a bunch of Australian bushmen here, we'd have pushed you bastards into the sea long ago". Samaras says the band of Australians who shipped off to Spain were broadly leftists, mostly communist, and every last one was deeply opposed to the global spread of fascism. "They were our first pioneers against fascism, the first Australians to stand up and take up arms, to put their lives on the line." The world was far more disconnected in the 1930s, meaning most Australians didn't follow the specifics of the Spanish Civil War. Instead they were concerned with things like "paying the rent, football and racing", Samaras says. "But people who did care, cared deeply." On the Republican side were the likes of McNeill, the Communist Party, trade unions, and some within the Labor Party. On the Nationalist side, it was mainly people involved with the Catholic Church, as the new democratic Spain had been taking steps to diminish the power of the Catholic Church there. Only one Australian was known to have fought for Franco and the Nationalist forces. His name was Nugent Bull. "He was a Catholic … His family were undertakers in [Sydney's] Newtown. He did the books at Luna Park," Samaras says. After the end of the Spanish Civil War, Bull went to England. And in an "astonishing, ironic turn of events", he joined the UK's Royal Air Force as an air gunner and was killed in the Battle of Britain. "So he was fighting for the fascists in Spain, and then against the fascists in World War II," Samaras says. General Franco and the Nationalist forces won the Spanish Civil War, which came to an end in early 1939. The violence and atrocities from both sides had left at least 500,000 people dead. "Both sides did terrible things. It was a terrible war," Samaras says. "[But] the killing didn't stop with the end of the war. Franco was not about reconciliation. He was about extermination. He wanted to get rid of his enemies … he kept imprisoning and killing people up until his own death in 1975." During the Cold War years, communists and other leftists were viewed with great suspicion in Australia, which did not help with the legacy of the International Brigades. "They became a victim of the Cold War," Samaras says. There are two unofficial memorials for Australians who fought in the Spanish Civil War — one in Melbourne's Trades Hall and one in Canberra's Lennox Gardens. But Samaras laments that there has been no official recognition by the federal government or the Australian War Memorial. ABC Radio National contacted the Australian War Memorial about the Australians who fought in the Spanish Civil War. "The Australian War Memorial Act 1980 determines that the Memorial commemorates Australians who have died on or as a result of 'active service in war or in warlike operations by members of the Defence Force'," a statement said. "As the Australians who fought in the Spanish Civil War were not members of the Australian armed forces, they fall outside the legislated remit of the Australian War Memorial." The statement added that its collection does include items from the Spanish Civil War. But Samaras is continuing his fight for recognition. "History proved [these Australians] right very quickly," he says, as the end of the Spanish Civil War was soon followed by the start of World War II, when Australia went to war against Nazi Germany, and then Fascist Italy. "So the people who got in first should be respected and admired," Samaras says. "The Australian government has never done anything for them … They've never been honoured officially."
RTÉ News
20-05-2025
- Sport
- RTÉ News
Olympian, Cleric, Brigadista: Robert Hilliard's Enigmatic Life
We present an extract from Swift Blaze of Fire, the new biography by Lin Rose Clark. Celebrated in song by Christy Moore and affectionately recalled in many memoirs, Robert "Bob" Hilliard, the author's grandfather, is one of Ireland's best-known International Brigadistas. His short life blazed with a rare intensity; his death in Spain left a dark shadow hanging over his family. This book unravels Hilliard's enigmas to bring us an absorbing character and a fresh understanding of the times that shaped him. My grandfather's name was Robert Martin Hilliard and there has always been a Robert Martin Hilliard-shaped gap in our family. As time passed my sisters and I heard more about him. It seemed he had a bewildering series of occupations. At one stage he was a Church of Ireland priest, so when our atheist father joked about marrying a vicar's daughter I clothed my mind's-eye grandfather in a white dog collar, like the local vicar. My mother said he was also a journalist and a boxer. Boxing was not his job, though – when boxing was on TV she would say, proudly, that he had been an amateur who boxed in the Olympic Games. In her opinion, amateur boxing was more sporting than professional, because amateurs wore thicker gloves and won by displaying skill rather than damaging their opponents. Our grandfather was Irish, and our mother told tales of her own childhood in Northern Ireland, where he was sent after being ordained. The ugly part of his story was that he walked out on our grandmother and his four children to go to London; the sad part was that he died in Spain. Eventually I learned the name of the battle where he was shot, Jarama, and the year, 1937. Tim and Deirdre (our mother), Robert Hilliard's eldest children, were shattered by his death. They had always thought he would come back. Long into adulthood, Deirdre was tormented by dreams that she was running to catch up with him in the street, only to find she was following a stranger – or worse, that he looked at her with no sign of love or recognition. Their mother transmitted a sense to her children that their father had dealt the whole family a crushing betrayal. Deirdre was left with irreconcilable contradictions. How could the affectionate, playful father she remembered walk away from her and her brothers and sister? How could he leave them so unprovided for that they had to do moonlight flits to escape unpaid bills, and often went short of food? On the one hand the International Brigades were a heroic undertaking; her father's readiness to fight Francoism was therefore heroic. On the other he had left his own children, and what kind of hero did that? The effects of such an abandonment don't end with one generation. As a teenager I was acutely aware of our mother's unresolved unhappiness. It mingled with the resentments she shared with many women trapped in the role of 1960s housewife. Our house felt full of exploding emotions, making me eager to leave home and for a while putting Robert Hilliard out of my head. The Killarney department store came as a big surprise, standing out in the street, larger than its neighbouring shops, R HILLIARD AND SONS in impressive lettering across the front. Peering through plate glass, I could see no further than the window display of clothing, footwear and steam irons. It was 1975 and I was a young teacher on my Easter holidays, hitchhiking and walking with a friend through Kerry and Cork. We had been trudging through Killarney, looking for the Killorglin road, when I saw the unexpected name. Was our family related to the Hilliards in this shop? I didn't go in. Tired and travel-stained after a day on the road, I felt too scruffy to present myself. We pressed on to the youth hostel, but the shop's image lingered. During another of my 1970s visits to Kerry I wondered aloud to a stranger about the scarcity of people in the sweeping landscape – where was everyone? – and he described the events behind the long-deserted ruins and the haunted feel of empty places where once there had been inhabitants. His words brought back my mother's stories of a terrible Famine, evictions and mass emigration. Fragments of history, some from family members, some from strangers, I began connecting with my missing grandfather. That Killarney shop was central to his boyhood, I learned. His grandmother had walked hundreds of miles during the Famine to replenish its stock. He had swum in the Killarney lakes, fished in them, rowed boats across them, run wild on their margins with his sister Moll, and carried away from his childhood a lifelong yearning for the ecstatic self-forgetfulness that the lakes and the mountains brought. After World War II, little was said or written in Ireland about Irish participation in the International Brigades. As this silence lifted, Robert Hilliard's repute grew. In 1984 singer-songwriter Christy Moore released his album Ride On, featuring the song 'Viva la Quinta Brigada', which commemorates the names of many fallen brigadistas. Here's the second verse: Bob Hilliard was a Church of Ireland pastor From Killarney across the Pyrenees he came, From Derry came a brave young Christian brother Side by side they fought and died in Spain. And then the stirring 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.' Suddenly every Christy Moore fan knew my grandfather's name and had heard of the anti-fascist cause for which he died.
The Herald Scotland
21-04-2025
- Politics
- The Herald Scotland
‘Human dignity and honour': remembering the Warsaw Ghetto uprising
When the Nazis entered the ghetto in spring 1943 for the final-round up, ZOB resisted by force. ZOB was a mix of Zionist and Socialist organisations, with big differences in politics, their point of unity being that all Jews, regardless of their political outlook, would end in Auschwitz. ZOB was completely outnumbered and outgunned but held out against the German army for some five weeks. It tied down thousands of German troops, meaning they could neither be deployed in the war nor used to hunt Jews. Goebbels (the Nazi propaganda chief) fumes in his diary about Jews fighting back and with captured German weapons! It was an inspiration understood by some of the leaders of the Polish resistance, one of whom commented that "the blood of the ghetto fighters was not shed in vain…it gave birth to an intensified struggle against the fascist invader". By the middle of May, the Nazis decided to burn the ghetto to the ground to avoid further German casualties. Some survivors fled through the sewers; most were captured and killed. The uprising was part of a radical Jewish tradition which included large numbers of young Jews joining left parties and antifascist groups, including the International Brigades to fight against fascism in Spain in the late 1930s; the cemetery and monument in Montjuic in Barcelona tells us that some 15% of the International Brigaders were Jewish (indeed 50% of the USA Abraham Lincoln Brigade), a hugely disproportionate number. This radical tradition preceded this and continued to the Ghetto. One of the great historical ironies is how a large proportion of the shock troops of the ethnic cleansing (Naqba) of the Palestinians in 1948 was carried out by this same tradition, recruited from the left kibbutz movement. Pre-Second World War this tradition had been avowedly non-Zionist. A mixture of the Holocaust and western immigration controls convinced many Jews that a homeland was necessary. The Palestinians became the victims of the Holocaust victims. The ghetto fighters left us a universal message of humanism and hope in the face of barbarism. This is a message that we need to remember as we confront racism and fascism wherever and whenever it raises its head. Henry Maitles is Emeritus Professor of Education at the University of the West of Scotland Agenda is a column for outside contributors. Contact: agenda@
Associated Press
15-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Associated Press
'Haizean' by James Gerard: A Story of War, Exile, and Reconciliation
TOMAH, WI, UNITED STATES, April 15, 2025 / / -- As Spain marks the 80th anniversary of the bombing of Guernica, the novel 'Haizean' by James Gerard and John Sawkins is captivating readers across the country, quickly becoming a cult favorite. This powerful story blends historical events with personal narratives, exploring themes of family, war, endurance, and ultimately, the pursuit of peace. Set in the Basque town of Guernica and the Scottish district of Scotstoun, 'Haizean' follows the journey of Dr. Asier Santa Maria, a doctor forced into exile after the devastating bombing of his hometown during the Spanish Civil War. Separated from his family, whom he assumes have perished, Asier rebuilds his life in Glasgow with the help of Scottish journalist John Oswald, who fought against Franco in the International Brigades. Through Asier's diaries, readers witness his emotional struggle with isolation, trauma, and the challenges of adapting to a foreign land—a journey that resonates deeply with the experiences of refugees today. The second half of the novel shifts focus to a peace center named Haizean (Basque for 'in the wind'), established in a flat in Scotstoun. Inspired by Guernica's real-life peace initiatives and Picasso's renowned painting, the center becomes a global hub for students to exchange ideas, fostering understanding across different cultures and generations. About the Author James Gerard, a mental health campaigner, found solace and healing through writing the novel, stating, 'I was going through a difficult time mentally, and writing Asier's story became my way of finding hope and purpose. His journey of overcoming despair and finding peace mirrors challenges many faces today.' Co-author John Sawkins, a former lecturer in English at the University of the Highlands and Islands, reflected on Asier's experience of exile, saying, 'Spending 40 years in a foreign land without a community of fellow countrymen would have been incredibly isolating. This story speaks to the universal human need to reclaim identity and find belonging, which remains relevant in today's world.' To celebrate the novel's impact, Gerard and Sawkins will host a free public reading of Haizean on October 20th at 6:30 p.m. at Augustine United Church in Edinburgh. This event offers readers an opportunity to hear excerpts from the book and gain insight into the authors' creative process and the historical inspiration behind the story. The inspiration behind Haizen stems from James Gerard's personal experience with mental health struggles, particularly depression, and his visit to Guernica, where he connected deeply with the trauma and isolation. Gerard channeled his own emotional challenges into writing the novel, using it as a means of processing and healing. The story also reflects his interest in how historical events, such as the Spanish Civil War and the bombing of Guernica, continue to resonate in contemporary issues like exile and oppression, with themes that are still relevant today. Through Asier's journey, Gerard explores the enduring impact of trauma, displacement, and identity, drawing parallels with current struggles, including those in Catalonia. Message from the Author 'As the author, I would want to say to the readers: 'Haizean' is not just a story about the past- it's about the emotions we carry with us, the wounds that time doesn't always heal, and the search for peace in a world that often feels divided. I wrote this book because I believe that everyone, regardless of their background or experience, can relate to themes of trauma, isolation, and the need for healing. Through Dr. Asier's journey, I hope you find something that resonates with your own struggles and that, like him, you see that even in exile and despair, there is a path toward redemption and peace. I want you to feel that your story, your pain, and your healing matter. This book is an invitation to reflect, to connect, and to recognize the strength in our shared human experiences.' Recently, James Gerard participated in a Prime Seven Media spotlight interview with esteemed host Logan Crawford, where he delves into discussing his powerful historical novel that explores war, exile, and the journey toward peace and reconciliation. (Logan Crawford TV Interview Link: ) 'Haizean' is available now, inviting readers to pause, reflect, and see the world through another's eyes—a timely reminder of the enduring power of empathy, resilience, and the pursuit of peace. This book is available for purchase at Amazon, or you may click through this link Luna Harrington Prime Seven Media +1 414-882-5318 email us here Visit us on social media: Facebook X Legal Disclaimer: EIN Presswire provides this news content 'as is' without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the author above.
