There can be few areas in Europe which rallied to the cause of Republican Spain and particularly of the Basques, as the people of the South Wales coalfield did. Where the Vizcayan peoples were concerned the 'language factor' clearly played a key role.

The support given to the Spanish Republic and those who defended it went far beyond the end of the war,and indeed beyond the life of Franco's Spanish State.. The ceremony, to dedicate a stone to the memory of three local men who died "Yn y'r Rhyfel Spaenig" (in the Spanish war) as it was and is invariably known here in Wales, took place on July 19th of l996. Almost exactly 60 years after the end of the war and long after most of the combatants had passed away. That such a ceremony could take place in a small Welsh town, attended by several thousand people and subsequently developed into a national television documentary suggests a level of interest beyond the simply curious. So it is, and so it remains.

The article by Jaime de Miguel in Volume 3 number 3, mentioned: several of the major British archives which deal with the Spanish Civil War.There is one further,substantial archive here in Wales.

The South Wales Miners Library, University of Swansea, Hendrefoilan House, Hendrefoilan, Sketty, SWANSEA. SA2 7NB. Opening times vary.Outside normal term times. Mon-Thurs: 0900-1700.

At the Miner's Library and in the University's main archive is held a wealth of manuscript material, photographs, printed matter, pamphlets and ephemera on the SCW, and on the role of Welshmen.and women in the war. This is a Republican archive and one of some importance.

It's scope is far back to the early years of the century when the first Asturian exiles,who were miners, came to Wales, and extends beyond the War's end to the life of the refugees who came to Wales from the Basque lands. The South Wales Miner's Library also includes a very substantial amount of material relating to the SCW recorded in the 1970's and 1980's as part of the massive Coalfield Oral History project. It would be wrong to represent this as primarily a 'military' collection though its contents are remarkable for the insight they give into the process of Civil War. The Library is currently involved in the Spanish Govemment's major project to collect and collate all material held world-wide on the Civil War.

It also has a web site: www.swan.ac.uk/swcc/