Leitrim-based filmmaker chronicles Irish nurse’s story in Spanish Civil War

Dromahair-based filmmaker Johnny Gogan is launching his new film at the Glens Arts Centre in Manorhamilton on September 20. 

The sixty-minute documentary, titled Behind the Lines, tells the story of a nurse from Sligo named Ruth Ormsby and her perilous service in Spain during its bloody civil war from 1936 to 1939.

The screening at the Glens Art Centre is part of the Adaptation Film Festival which takes place from September 18 until September 21.

Ruth Ormsby was born in Dromore West in 1900 and, along with three of her sisters, trained as a nurse in Britain in the early 1920s. 

By the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in July 1936, she was an experienced theatre nurse at the busiest public hospital in Glasgow, The Royal Infirmary. 

She volunteered to go to Spain to join the International Brigades’ medical service, which supported the defence of Spain’s democratically elected government.

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“For very good reasons, which become clear as the film progresses, Ruth left little record of her time in Spain bar some correspondence with her brother in Dromore West,” said Mr Gogan.

He admitted that researching her story was “very challenging,” but he discovered a memoir written in Spanish by a surgeon named Moises Broggi, who turned out to be the leader of Ruth’s medical unit.

“Broggi wrote about Ruth's service in his unit right up to the conclusion of her Spanish journey in Barcelona in May 1938. By mapping his movements, I was able to trace Ruth's journey through some of the most bitter and hard-fought battles of the Spanish Civil War,” Mr Gogan explained.

Behind the Lines, presented by Galway woman Catherine Howley, a Barcelona-based expert in the Spanish Civil War, also highlights the stories of other Irish medics and volunteers who served in the conflict, including Cork’s Mary Elmes and Dubliner Paddy Cochrane.

Catherine Howley and Johnny Gogan will participate in a post-screening discussion at the Glens Arts Centre following the 12pm screening on Saturday, September 20. 

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The film will screen at the Model Arts Centre in Sligo the following day.

Behind the Lines was edited by Dromahair-based Patrick J. O’Rourke, with the musical score composed by Steve Wickham.