ANTI-IMPERIALIST v IMPERIALIST WAR COMMEMORATIONS – Manus O’Riordan

PETER DALY AND THE BATTLE OF QUINTO, AUGUST 1937

Peter Daly, a veteran of Ireland’s War of Independence, volunteered to fight in the Spanish Anti-Fascist War, and was the Commander of the 15th International Brigade’s British Battalion during the Battle of Quinto, which took place 79 years ago this month, in August 1937. In the fight for Purburell Hill, just outside Quinto, Peter Daly was wounded in the stomach on August 25, and died of his wounds on September 5.

See the 13th to the 21st minute of https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BItyNr50vjw for my address at the 2013 Peter Daly Commemoration, where I highlighted the critical need to emphasise the fundamental contrast between anti-imperialist commemorations of the Spanish Anti-Fascist War and imperialist celebrations of Britain’s First World War.

See www.anphoblacht.com/contents/1086 for an account of the life and death of Peter Daly.

See http://irelandscw.com/part-IrDem3709-10.htm#371009Daly for a contemporary report of his death.

Michael O’Riordan (1917-2006) was a former IRA man who fought with distinction with the Connolly Column of the International Brigade in Spain and became General Secretary of the Communist Party of Ireland.