Falangist troops marching in a freeded town. DVX

Falangist troops marching

Charles (Charlie) Donnelly, from Dungannon, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland.  Poet, student at University College Dublin (my alma mater) and serial member of Left Republican splinter groups.  A volunteer in the "Connolly Column", 15th International Brigade, he was killed in action while commanding a platoon of Irish volunteers operating alongside US and Canadian Internationalists of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade at Jarama, 27 February, 1937.  He was 22 years old.  In 2008 the University College Dublin Branch of the Irish Labour Party renamed itself the Charlie Donnelly Branch in honour of his memory.  Ar dheis Dé a anam.  JR.

"Even the olives are bleeding ..."

In September 1941 the National Liberation Front (EAM) is formed. The most important offshoot of this group is the National People's Liberation Army or Ethnikos Laikos Apeleftherotikos Stratos (ELAS), which is founded in December 1941 as the military arm of EAM.