Sinn F\u00e9in’s spokesperson on Foreign Affairs, Se\u00e1n Crowe TD, attended an\u00a0event to remember and commemorate the members of the International Brigades who fought in Spain during the country’s civil war of 1936 to 1939.<\/p>\n
Speaking at the event in C\u00f3rdoba, Andaluc\u00eda, Deputy Crowe told the crowd:<\/p>\n
“The men and women who joined the International Brigades were motivated by the highest of ideals.<\/p>\n
“It wasn’t for wealth, profit or personal gain<\/p>\n
“Many of the Irish who fought and spilled their blood on\u00a0the soil of Spain, came from an Ireland that had witnessed and experienced\u00a0the brutality of\u00a0imperialism in all its many forms.<\/p>\n
“They came from a land where the population had been decimated in one\u00a0generation, as over\u00a0a million people died of starvation and\u00a0disease, and another million were lost through forced emigration.<\/p>\n
“Many of those who died here were from Dublin, a city I proudly represent in the Irish Parliament\u00a0today.<\/p>\n
“The Dublin they came from had slums, and a poverty and a child mortality rate that\u00a0was higher than Calcutta.<\/p>\n
“Workers and their families scraped by in overcrowded tenement housing,\u00a0work was scarce and organised labour brutally suppressed. Many had\u00a0fought and taken an active part in Ireland\u2019s freedom struggle only to\u00a0see their hopes and aspirations lost to the forces of reaction and\u00a0conservatism.<\/p>\n
“They were Irish republicans and all were Internationalists.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Crowe continued:<\/p>\n
“They had joined with others from all across the world in a\u00a0fight to support democracy, and against the fascist tide that was\u00a0sweeping across Europe.<\/p>\n
“The odds were stacked against them.<\/p>\n
“Badly equipped, but with their courage and the righteousness of their\u00a0cause, the International Brigadiers stopped Franco\u2019s Army\u2019s advance.<\/p>\n
“Democracy lost out in the end but the men and women of the\u00a0International Brigade were not involved or responsible for that\u00a0failure.<\/p>\n
“The International Brigadiers fought and died in Spain for an\u00a0inclusive world. A world where every child regardless of race colour\u00a0or creed can live free from poverty and hunger, a world where their\u00a0talents and natural abilities are nourished and developed to their\u00a0full.\u00a0That will be their legacy.<\/p>\n
“As we gather here today we must remember the\u00a0contemporary\u00a0problems in Europe.\u00a0The construction of\u00a0fortress Europe, the economics of austerity, the denial of asylum for\u00a0people fleeing war and hunger, and the rise of racism of and xenophobia, which are\u00a0all symptoms of the failure of the worst excesses of unbridled\u00a0capitalism<\/p>\n
“Let us all here today join together to make\u00a0a commitment to work and make the world the International Brigadiers fought for a reality.<\/p>\n
“\u00a1Venceremos!”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
ENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sinn F\u00e9in’s spokesperson on Foreign Affairs, Se\u00e1n Crowe TD, attended an\u00a0event to remember and commemorate the members of the International Brigades who fought in Spain during the country’s civil war of 1936 to 1939. Speaking at the event in C\u00f3rdoba, Andaluc\u00eda, Deputy Crowe told the crowd: “The men and women who joined the International Brigades […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[221,132,220],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international-brigades","category-spain","category-spanish-civil-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2526"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2528,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2526\/revisions\/2528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}