La Pasionaria

Scots, have always been adventurers spreading out to the four corners of the globe, Winston Churchill said no nation perhaps expect Greece gave more to world. Maybe a throw back to the clans, and the Highland Clearances the Scot's have always been up for the fight, brave beyond belief and fearless warriors.

This sculpture was commissioned in 1974, and produced by the Liverpool based sculptor, Arthur Dooley. The statue of Ibárruri was erected on a site chosen by Dooley at the south west corner of Clyde Street, facing the River Clyde from the Clyde Walkway.

There is a sadness attached to the story of this sculpture, Dooley lived in poverty in his Liverpool workshop and spent his time in Glasgow in a working men's hostel. The monument was erected without public ceremony in case this caused an embarrassing incident by the statue's opponents Dooley never saw his finished work as by then he was penniless and unable to afford to travel to Glasgow.

The Sculpture commemorates The City of Glasgow and the Labour Movement's tribute to the British Volunteers of the International Brigade who fought in the Spanish Civil War of 1936-9; their fight against fascism is embodied in the statue of Dolores Ibárruri (1895-1989), "La Pasionaria" ("The Passion Flower"), a heroine of their cause and a leader in the Spanish Republican and Communist movements.

She stand on the Clydeside directly across the road from the Custom House, the embarkation point for many emigrants leaving Scotland many for good. I have always looked at her anguished pose as if reaching out to the river to try and grab a loved one back to her, and though how true to life this scene would have been at that very quayside over the centuries of leaving.