Ian Gibson: A lifelong allegiance to Spanish culture

Barriada Ian Gibson is a residential neighbourhood in Fuente Vaqueros named after an award-winning Irish writer, known for his search for the body of Federico García Lorca.

Around 17 kilometres west of the city of Granada, it was in this small town that the Spanish poet was born.

Gibson spent much of his later life looking for the grave of the Spanish literary genius, which resulted in his deeply researched biography in 1985, a book that brought new insight into Lorca's life and controversial death during the Spanish Civil War.

His earlier book about Lorca's brutal execution (The Assassination of Federico García Lorca) was banned in Franco's Spain because it challenged the regime's narrative.

Born in Dublin in 1939, Gibson studied Spanish and French at Trinity College. His first encounter with Spanish literature - especially the poetry of Lorca - had a profound impact on his life and work.

He began his career as a lecturer in Spanish literature at Queen's University Belfast and the University of London, but his academic pursuits soon drew him into a deeper engagement with Spain's cultural and historical traditions. Other principal figures of Spanish 20th-century culture whom he portrayed in major biographies were Salvador Dalí, Antonio Machado and Luis Buñuel. He also published works about the Spanish Civil War and the Francoist dictatorship.

The hispanist moved permanently to Spain in 1978, shortly after Franco's death, living for many years near Granada, and later in Madrid's Lavapiés neighbourhood, and also in the La Malagueta district of Malaga city.

Gibson built his career around telling the stories of Spain's most important 20th-century artists and writers.

He became a Spanish citizen in 1984, and his work has influenced how both scholars and the public understand Spanish history and literature.