Robert Hilliard

Who was Robert Hilliard?

Robert Martin Hilliard was an Olympic boxer, Irish republican, Church of Ireland minister and communist. He was killed in the Spanish Civil War fighting in the International Brigades.

Hilliard was born in Moyeightragh near Killarney. His father's family were prosperous shop owners. Robert was educated at Cork Grammar School and then Mountjoy School in Dublin. He won a Read Sizarship to Trinity College Dublin in 1921. There he became interested in republican politics, co-founding the College's Thomas Davis Society and participating in the latter stages of the Irish Civil War.

Hilliard was interested in a variety of sports and was a founding member of Trinity's hurling club. In 1923 he was champion of the Irish Amateur Boxing Association and of British and Irish Universities. He fought in the bantamweight class at the 1924 Olympics, representing Ireland. He got a bye in the first round and lost on points to Benjamín Pertuzzo in the second round.

Hilliard left Trinity in 1925 without a degree. In 1926 he married Edith Rosemary Robins born 1905 in Ngara, Nyassaland, Africa daughter of Stephen Robins and Rose Melicent Baker of Kingswood Hanger in Gomshall, Surrey.