For God and Spain: the truth about the Spanish war

Aodh de Blácam’s pamphlet, For God and Spain: The Truth about the Spanish Civil War, exemplifies how religion framed the popular Irish response to Spain. A London-born evangelical who converted to Catholicism and Irish republicanism in his youth, de Blácam was a journalist and a member of the governing Fianna Fáil party executive. 

Like most Catholic intellectuals, he was was unequivocal in his support for General Franco whom he regarded as ‘fighting for the cause of all Christendom’ against ‘the atheistic materialism of Moscow’. Although his pamphlet called for spiritual rather than material aid, several Irish Brigade volunteers cited it as influencing their decision to fight in Spain. 

De Blácam’s zeal reflected his view of Spain as a model for a Catholic Ireland. ‘What would Ireland have been’ had it developed free from British domination: ‘the answer is: another Spain’. It also reflected his belief, one widely shared by Irish Catholic intellectuals, that Franco – like Mussolini, Dollfuss, and Salazar – represented a new form of Catholic politics based on Pope Pius XI’s corporatist principles. 

The pamphlet was published by the Jesuit-owned Irish Messenger press which distributed 400,000 pamphlets and 3 million copies the Irish Messenger of the Sacred Heart magazine between 1937 and 1938. Typifying the militant, transnational nature of Catholic Action propaganda, another of its pamphlets – Soldiers of the Sacred Heart (1936) written by the Spanish Jesuit Fr Florentino Alcañiz García – appealed to children to join the Church’s crusade against ‘the Russian Bolsheviks’. 

The Catholic Church in Ireland supported the Nationalists through sermons, a collective statement by the Irish bishops, a nationwide church-gate collection, and the holding of a Te Deum to celebrate Franco’s victory. In 1937 the Irish bishops’ Lenten pastorals devoted more attention to the war than any other single issue. In contrast to more nuanced positions adopted by clergy in Britain and France, who balanced the Church’s interests against issues of social justice, the Irish hierarchy expressed unconditional support for Franco. Bishop Mageean of Down and Connor, for instance, declared that ‘The issue is clear-cut: for God or against God, Christ or anti-Christ.’ For Bishop Fogarty of Killaloe, the Nationalists were ‘gallant champions of the Cross who are fighting so gloriously for Christ’. 

This partisan stance reflected the Catholic Church’s fervent anti-communism, but it was also a product of broader anxieties about modernity. Spain was depicted as a warning of the dangers of secular influences further infiltrating Ireland, and the Church drew on popular anti-communism to suppress liberal impulses in Irish society.  

While the Catholic Church was successful in mobilising Irish opinion behind the Nationalists, the Irish government’s reluctance to recognise Franco’s regime until 1939 led to tensions. Careful to maintain their close relationship with the Irish government, the bishops did not identify too closely with the militant demands of Franco’s far-right Irish supporters. 

In contrast to their Spanish counterpart, the Irish hierarchy has never apologised for their support for Franco or denial of his regime’s atrocities.