Time running out for Spain to deal with its darkest chapter — and stop a present day lurch to the far-right

Unlike other nations, Spain has never dealt with the ghosts of its long dictatorship under Franco, and it may get worse for those hoping to find the truth about the past, writes Graham Keeley

A plaque in Barbastro cemetery in eastern Spain to the scores who were killed for opposing Franco (Iris Mir )

Iris Mir could be doing better things, like surfing in the Mediterranean. Instead, she is visiting Barbastro, a small town near Huesca in eastern Spain, where her relatives live. But this is no family visit to swap small talk with her loved ones.

The 39-year-old entrepreneur from Barcelona wants to find out exactly where her great-grandfather José Mir is buried. For most families in Barbastro this is easy. Not so for Mir.

Historians estimate that like about 100,000 others in Spain, his remains lie in a mass grave where he was dumped after he was executed after the Spanish civil war. His only crime – he was on the “wrong” side when the bloody 1936-1939 conflict ended.