Irish Examiner View: Spain confronting its past offers us a lesson for peace

There were fears that a magnificent basilica had become a place of veneration to Franco and fascism.

A friar walks in front of the Valle de los Caidos on the outskirts of Madrid, Spain. File Picture: Manu Fernandez/AP

Anyone who has ever seen the Valle de Cuelgamuros in the Sierra de Guadarrama near Madrid will have been inspired by the beauty and grandeur of the hugely impressive monument. 

Previously known as the Valle de los Caidos (literally translated as 'The Valley of the Fallen') it was built by the regime of former dictator Francisco Franco, supposedly as a ‘national act of atonement’ and reconciliation in the wake of the country’s brutal civil war.