The death has taken place of Bob Doyle, the last surviving member of the Irish veterans of the Spanish Civil War.
Mr Doyle (92) fought as part of the Connolly Column in the International Brigades on the republican side of the Spanish Civil War, which took place between 1936 and 1939.
He died yesterday in London where he had lived for the last number of years.
Born in North King Street, Dublin, in 1916 as part of a family of five children, Mr Doyle joined the IRA as a teenager. He became politically active in the 1930s, and a beating by Eoin O'Duffy's right-wing Blueshirts after one demonstration left him with permanent damage in one eye.
In 1937 he went to Spain to fight fascism. After working his way through France he arrived in La Mancha and joined up with the republican force where the skills learnt from his IRA-days were put to use training foreigners entering the war.
However, he disobeyed orders and joined a group heading for the front line. He was eventually captured and interned in a concentration camp before being released as part of a prisoner exchange in 1939.
In an interview with The Irish TimesMr Doyle said he felt the battle in Ireland and Spain were one and the same.
"I thought there was a danger that Ireland would go fascist and that was one of the motivating factors in making up my mind to go to Spain," he said. "I didn't know much about Spain, but I knew my thoughts were that every bullet I fired would be against the Dublin landlords and capitalists."
Mr Doyle returned to Spain many times since, as his wife Lola was Spanish, and he also worked with the underground during the years of Franco's dictatorship.
An avowed communist until the end, Mr Doyle remained active in politics speaking at meetings throughout Europe right up to his death.
In 2006 he released a record of his life's work in a biography Brigadista - an Irishman's fight against fascism.
