Manchester CPGB - Spanish Civil War vol. - Commemoration

Irish volunteers played an extensive role in the Spanish Civil War - so much so that they participated on both sides thereby extending the misery to as many people as possible. As well as contributing to the International Brigade, Eoin O'Duffy led a group of Irish soldiers who fought for Franco's Nationalists (and actually represented the largest foreign contingent on the Right). I'm sure that Ireland has conveniently forgotten this though and there will be no plaque to commemorate this glorious adventure.

& it is true there are neither plaques nor statues of O'Duffy - it's a bit of an overstatement to think his bunch of blueshirt fascists did much marauding. They were in fact shot at by Franco's own army who mistook them for republican internationalists at the battle of Jarama in 1937.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Brigade_%28Spanish_Civil_War%29

Here's a review of a biography of the man who went from founding the Irish police or "garda" to describing himself as the third most important man in Europe after Hitler and Mussolini.

[Eoin O’Duffy – A Self-Made Hero by Fearghal McGarry, Oxford University Press, 2005, €35/£25]
 http://www.indymedia.ie/article/76010 his wiki  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eoin_O'Duffy

Whereas it is true that the Irish mostly have not exorcised the fascistic sympathies of their founding fathers, they are on the way and that can be reflected in popular culture too for a wider non-Irish public. Think of Ken Loach's 2006 "The wind that shakes the barley" with its pair of brothers who find themselves on opposing leftist and fascistic side of the civil war which followed the end of the war of independence.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wind_That_Shakes_the_Barley

Given that Brown was a communist and that communism caused millions to die and to live under totalitarian governments for decades, isn't it a little tastelss to erect a plaque in his memory? What an insult to those who suffered under communism.