Joseph irla

Josep Irla i Bosch (San Feliu de Guíxols, October 24, 1874-Saint-Raphaël, Provence, September 19, 1958) was a Spanish politician, president of the Generalitat of Catalonia in exile.

The beginnings of a business and political life

Josep Irla with his godless Lola and Ción

Josep was the son of Josep Irla i Rovira and Rita Bosch i Anglada. He is the son of a taponero worker who later had a tavern known as Casa Romagué. He was the eldest of three brothers: Josep (1876-1958), Francesc (1881-1961) and Nicolau (1886-1943), with whom he always had a close relationship, and with whom he shared economic and political activities.

As a young man, he studied at the School of Arts and Crafts, he did not follow any higher education and it was based on his effort, work and will that he gradually developed a deeply assimilated self-education.

Little by little, Josep Irla made his way in the world of business and politics. With his brothers, he began industrial and commercial activities from Sant Feliu de Guíxols with the creation of the company Josep Irla and company, with the capital participation of the three brothers and a more important role for him. From this base, they opened a cork stopper factory that expanded over the years; They were ship agents and later owners of a schooner and they traded wine and cork with Barcelona; could act as customs agents.

Family

Home and since 2011 Museu Irla in San Feliu

In 1902 he married Florencia Bas i Parent, also from Sant Feliu and a member of a family of corker workers. The couple had no children, but they did have two goddaughters, Encarnació Pijoan (Cion), daughter of the farmers of a farmhouse in Romanyá de la Selva, where they spent time due to the asthmatic illness he suffered from, and Lola Aymerich Robert, cousin hers who was orphaned as a child. As a young man, and following his family trajectory, he identified with federal republicanism. He and his father were the promoters of the Center Republicà Federal Català de San Feliu de Guíxols and also members of the local Masonic lodge Gesòria, while his brother Francesc directed the weekly El Programa.

First steps in politics, Sant Feliu de Guixols council

Leader of Catalan republicanism in the Girona regions, on November 12, 1905, municipal elections were held in which Josep Irla, at the age of 29, was elected councilor of the city council with the candidacy of the Center Republicà Federal, a candidacy that it brought together federalists and catalanistas; he became second deputy mayor and member of the government commission; From this new consistory, the mayor appointed by Royal Order, Mr. Ildefons Perdrieux, resulted. After various changes, Josep Irla became mayor. He presided over the city council from 1906 to 1910. Of this period of local life, the creation of services and works of public interest, social assistance, the promotion of popular culture and an economically austere and profitable administration stand out, he faced the damage suffered through the municipality in the downpours of the autumn of 1908, he always closely followed the events of the political life of Catalonia and manifested himself in his surroundings in a Catalanist and progressive sense. At the beginning of 1911 he participated in the constitution of the Federal Nationalist Republican Union (UFNR) in the Gerona region, and was president of the local group.

Provincial representative and the Assembly of Catalonia

Following the death of his father, then a provincial deputy, which took place the following April, he stood in the partial provincial election that was called to fill the vacancy for the district of La Bisbal, he was appointed without election by lack of opponents In the provincial elections of 1913 he was elected again as well as in the successive ones until 1923, with the arrival of the Primo de Rivera dictatorship, always for the district of La Bisbal.

From this position of provincial deputy for Girona, Josep Irla manages to participate in a capital institution, the Commonwealth of Catalonia. Josep Irla was an important collaborator of the first president of the association, Enric Prat de la Riba, and after his death he continued to hold positions of not great prominence, but of great responsibility under the presidency of Josep Puig i Cadafalch. He was also a member of the steering committee of the Caja de Crédito Comunal.

Politically, he first joined the UFNR and after its crisis, he approached the Partit Republicà Català integrated as a provincial deputy in the General Assembly of the Mancomunitat where he was part of various commissions.

Dictatorship of Primo de Rivera

With the liquidation of the institutions carried out by the Primo de Rivera dictatorship, he concentrated on his business while maintaining a certain political activity, always within the diminished possibilities of action of the period.

Republic and Generalitat of Catalonia

Once the dictatorship was defeated and at the time of the republican Generalitat, with the proclamation of the Republic he was appointed member of the provisional Provincial Commission of Girona and immediately after, President Macià appointed him commissioner delegate of the government of the provisional Generalitat in Gerona (April 1931 / February 1933, with a renewal in October 1932), a position created to exercise the executive functions of the now defunct Provincial Commission. From this place, he favored education and culture, especially those aimed at the popular sectors; promoted the use of Catalan in administrations, renewed actions aimed at restoring archaeological monuments, became interested in social assistance with various actions and developed low-cost public works —given the scarcity of budgetary resources— but with great impact on large sectors of the population, particularly those far from urban centers; all this with a careful economic management that reaffirmed his status as a good manager already started

In the elections to constitute the Provisional Council of the Generalitat, a body created to prepare and approve a draft Statute that was to regulate the autonomy of Catalonia, Josep Irla and Lluís Companys were elected vice-presidents and Josep Carner was its president.

The result of the work of this council was approved by the city councils and the majority of the people of Catalonia. This draft Statute is what is known as the Statute of Nuria. On September 9, 1932, the Statute of Catalonia was definitively approved.

At the beginning of 1932, he created and directed the Partido Republicà Federal del Baix Empordà, a regional group created basically to formalize a collective adherence to the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, which he did at the first ordinary National Congress of this formation held in February that year, although in practice this integration had already been working for months.

In the elections to the Parliament of Catalonia on November 20, 1932, Josep Irla headed the candidacy of the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya for the Girona constituency. The victory was total; more than half of the voters voted for Josep Irla and, proportionally, he was the candidate with the most votes in all of Catalonia.

Throughout the republican period, Josep Irla held various positions of responsibility within the Generalitat government, which shows his organizational effectiveness and the confidence placed in him by presidents Francesc Macià and Lluís Companys, as a deputy he was a member of the Permanent Deputation, of the permanent commissions of Public Works and Health, and of the Budget and Municipal Law commissions.

He was appointed Minister of the Interior in the Macià government, constituted on January 24, 1933, but a worsening of his chronic condition prevented him from holding the position and he was replaced after a few days by Joan Selvas, shortly after, he was relieved also from his position as commissioner delegate. Once restored, he became General Director of Industry (July-October 1933), dependent on the Government Ministry of Industry and Commerce in two successive legislatures chaired by Manuel Azaña and Alejandro Lerroux; he was dismissed after the entry of Diego Martínez Barrio.

Lola Aymerich and Montserrat in "Villa Catalunya"

In the summer of 1933, he joined the organizations created for the development of the Social Assistance area after the Generalitat received the transfers in this area, first with Josep Dencás as Minister of Health and Social Assistance in the stage of the President Macià and later, with his successors. Already with Companys, he was head of the Social Assistance Services and later general director. From this position, he projected ambitious actions in areas such as the treatment of patients with social rejection, the prevention of risks in childhood or care for retirees without resources, but also its implementation throughout the Catalan territory. He was also a member of the Council of Savings Banks. The events of October 1934, with the suspension of the Statute and the imprisonment of the Catalan government, left his political action on hold for the next year and a half.

With the restitution of the government, in March 1936 he recovered his position as director general. The start of the Civil War again made it difficult for him to act, in the first days while the councilor at that time, Manuel Corachan, was fully dedicated to the organization of the General Hospital of Catalonia, he actually assumed the direction of the Ministry. With the successive reshuffles of the government, he remained in office, but resigned when Antoni García, representative of the CNT, was appointed as counselor at the end of September.

Shortly after, in October 1936, he was appointed undersecretary of the Ministry of Culture, a newly created position with Ventura Gassol as counselor; but, coinciding with the departure of the east from Catalonia in the face of the danger of being the victim of an attack, he had to expand his powers and worked to ensure the operation of educational centers and libraries and for the preservation of the archaeological and artistic heritage of Catalonia.

In January 1937, just after Josep Tarradellas published the decrees with which he intended to control and regulate the entire financial apparatus of the Generalitat, he was appointed general director of Assets and Income, a position that was also new, but also very complex in a period of political exceptionality, which once again put his managerial conditions to the test.

President of the Parliament of Catalonia

On October 1, 1938, with a part of the Catalan territory already occupied by Franco's troops and with a complete defeat imminent, he accepted the responsibility of becoming president of the Parliament of Catalonia and was elected in the last session that he celebrated; in his inauguration speech he stated: "We were, are and will be republicans and catalanists, because we are liberals, because it is a feeling of our soul that has led us to feel and know the needs of our people".

Exile

On January 28, 1939, Josep Irla, president of the Parliament of Catalonia, like the rest of the Catalan authorities, went into exile. At the age of 62, he went to French territory with his wife, Florencia Bas, his goddaughter Concepció Pijoan, his brother Francesc and his sister-in-law María Duran, Nicolau's daughters, Pepita and Montserrat, and his wife, Cándida Planella, but without any of their assets that remained in San Feliu and that would later be confiscated by the Francoist authorities. Nicolau went to France a few days later, his goddaughter Lola Aymerich did not follow him, already married to a butcher from San Feliu de Guíxols, mother of one son and not politically active, becoming the only part of the family that does not go into exile.

Josep Irla lived for a while in Le Boulou (Roussillon) and later settled in Ceret (Vallespir), where he procured his livelihood by dedicating himself to his lifelong trade: the cork industry. In 1940, he was arrested by the Vichy French authorities and confined in Le Mans, from where he was able to escape and return to Ceret.

With the execution of President Companys on October 15, 1940, he refused to emigrate to America and automatically became president of the Generalitat of Catalonia in application of the Internal Statute of Catalonia, the only contemporary president who will not step foot as such the palace of the Generalitat. He then moved to Cogolin, in the Var department and further from the border, where he resumed manufacturing cork stoppers, an activity that provided him with the necessary resources to survive in the following years.

Resignation as President of the Generalitat

In April 1954, he appointed Josep Tarradellas, then Esquerra's general secretary, first counselor. Shortly after, now 78 years old, "old, sick and poor", according to his own words, on May 7, 1954, he signed a letter addressed to Josep Tarradellas in Paris, in which he informed him that he was he was forced to resign from the position of president of the Generalitat and asked that a new president be elected; On August 5, 1954, the deputies of the Parliament of Catalonia meeting at the embassy of the Spanish Republic in Mexico elected Josep Tarradellas as the new president of the Generalitat.

Historical death and recovery

Josep Irla died on September 19, 1958, just short of his eighty-second birthday, in Sant Rafèu (Provence).

In 1981, his remains were transferred to Barcelona and solemnly received by the presidents Jordi Pujol and Heribert Barrera in the Palace of the Generalitat, to be definitively buried in San Feliu de Guíxols. In 1997 the Josep Irla Foundation linked to the Republican Left of Catalonia was established with headquarters in Barcelona and a sub-headquarters in San Feliu de Guíxols with objectives of historical research and dissemination of political thought.

Josep Irla, endowed with a face with hard features, was not a great orator or a charismatic character, but he was an efficient and managerial politician, with great integrity, who knew how to connect with important sectors of Catalan society at the time (he won all the elections, at various levels, to which he ran), and who maintained the continuity of the institutions (first the presidency of the Parliament of Catalonia and later the Generalitat) in moments of enormous adversity.

Today, the Josep Irla Foundation has assumed the task of honoring it and preserving its ideological legacy.

Fonts

1. "Presidents of the Parliament. Josep Irla i Bosch (1938 - 1940)». www.parlament.cat. [Consult: 19-06-2010].
2. Oliveira, Susanna. «The third president». Presència [Girona], No. 2019, from 5 to 11 November 2010, p. 46-49.
3. Masanés, Cristina. «Tomba de Josep Irla. Porteu-me allà baix». Sàpiens [Barcelona], No. 79, maig 2009, p. 59. ISSN 1695-2014.
4. Bibliography of the Fundació Irla https://web.archive.org/web/201602132831/http://www.irla.cat/biografia/
5. Memories.
6. Família Soler - Aymerich.
7. "Exili i repressió contra la família de Josep Irla" d'Àngel Jiménez.