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Sound recording of an interview with Jimmy Kavanagh, Dublin who served in ‘C’ Company of Irish Brigade in Spain, by his son, James. Notes getting word from the Blueshirts about going to Spain, the trip to Galway, the storm at sea and the rescue operation, the journey to Spain, and impressions of Salamanca: ‘That’s where we were entertained. We were given lovely sandwiches, tea… cigarettes, everything’ and back on the train to Cáceres. Also records being fitted out in German uniforms at the barracks, their arrival at Ciempozeulos, and states of the Brigade, ‘the Irish Brigade did not see actually action, we were too small a company to go into action for a start, but we didn’t know that. We were really a garrison.’ Also recalls being on outpost duty, ‘we used to see movements… and I seen this movement and I said… “Hey look… there’s a Russian out there”… as the dawn broke… what was it?… It was an umbrella’. Notes also life in La Marañosa, and visit to a German battery, ‘the Germans that were there, there was no infantry… and they were a very proud lot, the Germans, ’cos they were nearly all officers, they wouldn’t speak to you… we didn’t know German’. In addition, records return to Cáceres before coming home, and on the subject of staying on, notes ‘those who wanted to could’ve stayed there but I was frightened to stay along with a good many more because in Cáceres when we were doing our training the Irish wasn’t all heroes, there was a lot of them very drunk and caused a lot of old trouble there and we became more or less unpopular.’ Records journey home to Dublin, and response of people in Ireland. Recording is poor quality and inaudible in parts.

Sound recording of an interview conducted by Robert Stradling with Denis Reynolds, Cootehill, county Cavan, who served in ‘D’ Company of Irish Brigade in Spain. Records how he heard about the Spanish Civil War through the media, what motivated him to go to Spain at 18 years of age with his friend Phil McBride, the situation in Ireland prior to his departure, his membership of Blueshirts and views on General O’Duffy. Refers to arrival in Galway, stating ‘When we arrived then in Galway there was a very big consignment of plain-clothes detectives and garda there and there was an order out for us to be arrested… it was on the 12th December 1936… the bishop of Galway came down… and he got up on the platform and he… appealed to the authorities not to arrest anyone except there were criminals’. Also describes journey on the tender from Galway Bay, and the issue of minors. In addition, notes a mass on the front marking the receipt of Sergeant Cadell into the church, the journey to Spain, impressions of the Spanish people and military training. Notes also drinking habits of Irish in Spain, and events surrounding the deaths of Tom Hyde and Dan Chute, and the attack at Titulcia, stating ‘We went out that day very early and we engaged this enemy fire… while we were doing that Franco’s troops was closing in behind in a big pincher movement and we had to withdraw to our own trenches that night… we were in a terrible state… when the morning came my coat was stiff with the white frost and I took it off and got two big sticks and stood it up on the top and I only had it up when it was riddled with machine-gun fire.’ Also records life at Ciempozuelos, including the disposal of corpses from the town, stating ‘I was in the mopping up party, and they picked a very young officer and the youngest lads we had… if you were older… you might never be the better of it, there was people dead for two weeks, more, and the dogs wouldn’t… go near a dead person if they could get a live person so the first thing we done was shot all the dogs… then… we brought all the corpses outside the town to the trenches and all the dead dogs, and buried them all.’ Notes billeting in a convent on arrival in the town, stating ‘the whole place was covered with blood… I saw the bodies of the nuns… and some of them wasn’t dead’. Includes an account of attack by enemy at La Marañosa, the execution of prisoners of war at Cáceres, carrying out religious duties in Spain, and further impressions of General O’Duffy. Also refers to the Irish Independent journalist Gertrude Gaffney in Spain, digging the trenches and dugouts, and his life in Ireland on his return from Spain.

Sound recording of interview conducted by Robert Stradling with Bernie Boles, Cahir, county Tipperary, who recalls knowing William F. McGrath, Cork, who served as Sergeant in ‘B’ Company of Irish Brigade in Spain. Notes how McGrath had been working in Fords, county Cork, and attended meeting in Imperial Hotel in approximately August 1936, before being persuaded to go to Spain as an interpreter. Outlines journey to Spain via Lisbon, on board a German vessel, with group consisting of mainly cashiered army officers and policemen. Notes the red light district in Lisbon, stating ‘There was some... time in Lisbon to organise buses to Spain… he [McGrath] told me… it was almost time for the buses to go and several of the Irish fellas were missing… Willie had an idea where they were going because he had heard them talking on the boat about women… so he went towards what he understood to be the red light district… he went down to this house… and here were my brave Irishmen with madam’s ladies… and they were all in this sort of a saloon, and they were all drinking tea or coffee… a few of them [the ladies] had rosaries around their necks and Willie saw the rosaries and he said to the lads… “What are they doing with your rosaries, “Well”, they said, “we hadn’t any money… and that’s all we could give them, and they were quite happy to take them”’. Also notes the horrendous condition of the barracks at Badajoz, upon the arrival of the Irish Brigadiers, due to a massacre that had previously occurred there. Also refers to drinking habits of the Irishmen and the lack of uniforms, stating ‘they were given from Germany… these uniforms… and they were beautiful material, but they were completely wrong in size for the lads because they were all small fellas… so Willie had to go around the town… it could have been Badajoz, to get the seamstresses to make up the uniforms’. In addition, notes that the men never got into battle although two got shot, and meeting ‘Franco’s Moors’. Also makes reference to letter from Welsh landowner, Evan Morgan, Lord Tredegar, to Louis [La Fleur], as he made his way to the Canary Islands (see P13/1/1/12/1).