Body of Lieutenant Tom Hyde

Taken by Cork medic Jim Roche, this photograph depicts Tom Hyde, one of the Irish Brigade’s first fatalities. 

Born near Midleton, County Cork, Hyde fought with Irish Republican Army during the Irish War of Independence, and served with the National Army during the Civil War that followed. He was prominent in the Blueshirt organisation which peaked in the mid-1930s. Hyde supported General O’Duffy’s extreme faction when the movement split, and became a staff officer in his fascistic National Corporate Party. Prior to the Irish Brigade’s departure, he made his living as the owner-manager of the local cinema in Midleton. 

Having completed basic training at Cáceres, the Irishmen received orders for the front on 16 February 1937. Their short route from Valdemora to Ciempozuelos lay behind their own lines in territory that had witnessed recent counter-attacks. This may explain why, on encountering English-speaking soldiers in unfamiliar uniforms, a Nationalist bandera from the Canary Islands opened fire without warning.  

Two Spanish officers attached to the Irish Brigade, who had stepped forward to greet the advancing unit, were instantly killed. Tom Hyde and another Irishman, Dan Chute, died in the firefight that ensued. Whilst unfortunate, the incident does not appear to have undermined the bandera’s credibility with the Spanish command. Rather, it was the Brigade’s failure to follow orders during its next military engagement that saw it transferred from the front and ultimately sent home. 

The bodies of Hyde and Chute were brought to Cáceres for an elaborate military funeral – ‘the largest ever seen in Cáceres’, O’Duffy claimed – attended by the mayor, military governor, and bishop. A telegram to the Irish press, which omitted the circumstances of their death, declared: ‘As true Irish solders and followers of Christ, they have made the supreme sacrifice.’  

Hyde was interred in the municipal cemetery in Cáceres but his death was marked by a well-attended Requiem Mass in Dublin’s Pro-Cathedral on 28 February 1937. The presence of Fine Gael opposition politicians, Christian Front leaders, National Corporate Party activists, and their Blueshirt rivals appeared to signal O’Duffy’s leadership of the still popular pro-Franco cause in Ireland. However, the ignominious return of the Irish Brigade four months later, and infighting among Franco’s Irish supporters, destroyed the movement’s credibility. 

A planned memorial in Midleton to the popular and well-respected officer, for which O’Duffy raised subscriptions, was never erected. In 1994 Tom Hyde’s nephew, and namesake, told a historian that although he had been brought up to revere the memory of his martyred uncle, he had, in later life, become ashamed of his association with Franco’s Spain.