"Spanish Sinn Fein" - Jan and Cora comment on parallels between Northern Spain and Ireland, Dublin Evening Telegraph 1923

I just came across the following note in the Dublin Evening Telegraph of Tuesday 09 January 1923:


SPANISH SINN FEIN: Interest in the Late Lord Mayor of Cork

Jan and Cora Gordon, the authors of "Poor Folk in Spain" (Lane), say 

"We do not think that England realised the great interest excited all over the world by the sufferings of the late Mayor of Cork. 

While his fate hung in the balance people would stop us in the streets of Murcia, or even in the outlying villages, to ask us if we believed that there was a chance of his recovery. 

He had died shortly before our homeward journey began. 

The northern parts of Spain see a parallel between their position and that of Ireland. Indeed, the parallel is not exact; rather one might compare them to the position to which Ulster fears to be relegated. 

The fact remains that Catalonia and the Basque countries, the hard-working, commercial parts of Spain, object to the domination, laxity, and misrule of the Government of Madrid. 

I believe that the party which wishes independence, the Spanish Sinn Fein, is very small; but it has become mixed with socialistic propaganda, communism, and so forth."


Who was this mayor of Cork? He was Terence MacSwiney who had died n the 25th October 1920 as a result of a hunger strike in protest at being tried by a military court and interred at Brixton Prison.


Bust of Terence MacSwiney at Cork City Hall

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