For most of its history, the "Irish Independent" (also called simply the "Independent" or more colloquially, the "Indo") was seen as a nationalist, Catholic, anti-Communist, newspaper, which gave its political allegiance to the Pro-Treaty party Cumann na nGaedheal and later its successor party, Fine Gael. During the Spanish Civil War, the "Irish Independent"s coverage was strongly pro-Franco; the paper criticised the De Valera government for not intervening on behalf of the Spanish Nationalists.