The experience of Basque dissidents in Ireland during the Second World War

It is the aim of this paper to investigate the experience of Basque exiles that came to Ireland during the Second World War to flee General Franco and his post–civil war repression. Many of these exiles previously occupied senior political and military positions in the Republican administration and were now forced to live in exile far away from Spain and their families. They escaped to Ireland because it was a democratic, friendly and Catholic nation, yet none of these men were idle. They continued the fight against international fascism from abroad. This article also details the exhaustive efforts Franco’s fascist representative in Dublin employed to force the Irish authorities to extradite these dissidents back to Spain to face imprisonment and possible execution. The research for this article has been gathered from archival investigations in the diplomatic files of Madrid and Dublin.