Jim Prendergast (revolutionary)

Jim Prendergast was born on 14 January 1914,^[3][4] in the Irish city of Dublin.^[5] He began working at the age of 14 as a machine operator in a mineral water factory.^[5]

In 1932 Prendergast joined the Irish Workers' Group,^[3] a precursor organisation to the Communist Party of Ireland,^[3] and in 1934 began studying at the Lenin International School in Moscow, before moving to London and joining the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB).^[3][4]

Jim Prendergast was an early volunteer for the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939),^[3] arriving in Spain on 12 December 1936 and almost immediately seeing combat in Cordoba near Lopera.^[3][4] Prendergast was attached to the XIV International Brigade which had no training, telecommunications, or air and artillery support, and as a consequence suffered high casualties at the hands of fascist forces.^[3][4] The military disaster for the International Brigades was later described by Jim Prendergast

"My rifle is soon burning hot. ‘Kit’ comes over. I notice his face with lanes of sweat running through the dust. He hands me a note. It is from Brigade H.Q. telling us that we must hold out at all costs. . . . Somebody calls my name. It is Pat Smith. Blood streams from his head and arm. Tom Jones of Wexford is there. Good man, Tom. Always dresses a man where he falls. A hero. He tells me Goff and Daly are hit. I reach the hill-crest where ‘Kit’ is directing fire. He is using a rifle himself and pausing every while to give instructions. Suddenly, he shouts, his rifle spins out of his hand, and he falls back. . . .  His voice is broken with agony. ‘Do your best boys, hold on!’ Tears glisten in our eyes. . . . ‘Kit’ is taken away. . . . I see Fascist tanks rolling up the road to the right. The Moors are sweeping us front and flanks. We'll never hold out now. I move to a firing-position. Suddenly, I am lifted of [sic] my feet. Something terrific has hit me in the side. I cannot breathe. . . . In the ambulance I meet ‘Kit’. He is in terrible agony, and can talk little. ‘How are the rest?’ is his constant question . . . Next morning they told me our great leader was dead."^[6]

Soon afterwards Prendergast was elected a Political Delegate for the Irish section of the International Brigades and made an officer after being persuaded by Will Paynter to attend an officer training course a position he held until he was wounded near Jarama on 12 February 1937.^[4]

Jim Prendergast wrote extensively in the Daily Worker on the capture Major Frank Ryan,^[3] the leader of the Irish anti-fascists in Spain, who was detained for far longer than other international volunteers as a part of Nazi attempts to make contacts with the Irish Republican Army.^[3][4][7]

In 1938 Jim Prendergast became one of the founding members of the Connolly Association (originally founded as the Connolly Club),^[3] a charity and republican activist organisation that sought to support the Irish immigrant communities living in Britain and to forward Irish republican and socialist ideas.^[3][8] In January 1939 the Connolly Association published a newspaper titled Irish Freedom (renamed Irish Democrat in 1945),^[3] with Jim Prendergast as its editor.^[8]

While selling copies of Irish Freedom near Marble Arch, Prendergast was arrested by the British police who falsely accused him of obstructing the highway.^[3][8] The case was dismissed after the magistrate suspected that Prendergast was arrested for selling a political newspaper and not for obstructing traffic,^[3] and noted that the case should never have been brought to court.^[8] While he was detained, agents of the British government had broken into Prendergast's house and searched his belongings.^[3][8]

During WWII, Jim Prendergast joined a group of volunteers consisting entirely of former International Brigade members,^[3] engaged in research to develop diving equipment for the British military.^[3][8] This group was headed by the communist scientist J. B. S. Haldane, who was also a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB).^[8]

Later in the war, Prendergast became a rear gunner for the Royal Air Force (RAF).^[3][8]