The English Literary Left of the 1930s spent its limited talents very freely on the Spanish Civil War, though in retrospect it does not seem such an angels and demons conflict as the simplistic thinking of the time, portrayed it. Auden's familiar poem - not a very good one, in my estimation - became almost a tract for an entire generation, very much as Rupert Brooke's war sonnets had done two decades before. Roy Campbell was virtually the only British poet to take Franco's side, and though he lacked political sense or judgment he had at least the advantage of knowing Spain and the Spanish at first hand. The best poetry, inevitably, was written by the Spaniards themselves, particularly by the short lived Miguel Hernandez, although Machado's haunting late war sonnets certainly ought to have been included here. Irish writers include Charles Donnelly, Blanaid Salkeld and Ewart Milne.