The Boxing Parson,
by Clifford Thurlow
leer en español In April 1904, in Killarney, County Kerry, Robert Martin Hilliard was born into the comforts of a middle-class family. He would live only 32 years, but in that brief span he became many men: scholar, boxer, clergyman, journalist, communist, soldier. His story is a parable of a turbulent age.Hilliard excelled at Trinity College, Dublin, and fought in the bantamweight division of the 1924 Paris Olympics. He married his childhood sweetheart, Rosemary, fathered four children, and entered the Church of Ireland ministry in Belfast. But he was restless. Poverty on the streets, the rise of fascism in Europe, the limits of pulpit sermons—these gnawed at him. By 1936 he had left the ministry, moved to London, and joined the Communist Party.That same summer, Spain erupted. Franco and ...