File 6 - Sound recording of an interview with Denis Reynolds

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.