by Meda Ryan
Praise for
Tom Barry: IRA Freedom Fighter
‘Meda Ryan’s fascinating biography Tom Barry: IRA Freedom Fighter, demonstrates her considerable and detailed knowledge concerning the famous Cork republican … She refers to Barry’s “greatness” and his “genius as a commander”, and in chronicling his intriguing life she produces many valuable details for the reader. She also takes issue on numerous occasions with Prof Peter Hart …’
Richard English, Irish Times
‘Even the most hardened “revisionist” historian will find Ryan’s book a source of interesting and valuable material. Ryan had access to Tom Barry’s papers, and conducted extensive interviews with him and others from the early 1970s onwards. This work is important because it is the first substantial nationalist/republican account of that period which tries to directly challenge this “new revolutionary history”.’
Liam Ó Ruairc, History Ireland
‘Meda Ryan crosses swords convincingly with Peter Hart on the authenticity of the “false surrender” at Kilmichael, which precipitated a fight to the finish with the Auxiliaries … If the War of Independence showed Tom Barry at his most effective, the biography is also interesting on his subsequent career … Meda Ryan has done an excellent job, and no doubt stirred further debate.’
Martin Mansergh, Irish Independent
‘This book on General Tom Barry and his contribution to the struggle for Irish freedom is one that I would recommend for every household and educational institution in this country … Meda Ryan has given us a true and authentic account of historical events, and a leader of extraordinary talent, that will be of benefit not only to people of this generation but to future ones as well.’
Seán Ó Ceilleacháir, Southern Star
‘The author’s collection of testimony from old IRA veterans, richly varied archival sources, and interest in being as accurate as possible in her retelling of the many colourful incidents which dominated his life combine to give the reader a comprehensive picture of Tom Barry.’
Frank Bouchier-Hayes, The Limerick Leader
‘At last a biography fit for a national hero … Meda Ryan has produced an excellent and well-documented biography of Barry ... [her] biography is an absolute must for anyone who is interested in the War of Independence as well as in Barry’s role in it.’
Peter Beresford Ellis, Irish Democrat
‘If there’s one man who epitomises that zealous virtue of ‘fighting the good fight’ in Ireland during the last century, it has to be Tom Barry … his prowess as a guerrilla leader made him the subject of song and story for subsequent generations …This biography of Barry is certainly a significant work, both in terms of its scholarly use of voluminous source material and its unique interpretation of such a colourful and contentious figure in Irish history.’
Michael Hall, Irish Post
‘The book is thoroughly researched … Incident after incident is related with unstinting conviction as the author takes on the mindset of her hero in recounting the many daredevil exploits of the West Cork flying column. Barry’s involvement on the fringes of the Treaty negotiation is dealt with as is the engagement with the ceasefire/dump arms deal of 1923 and his term as IRA chief of staff.’
Colette Olney, Bandon Opinion
Tom Barry
IRA Freedom Fighter
Meda Ryan
‘In war, it is not the men who count, it is the man’
Napoleon
MERCIER PRESS
3B Oak House, Bessboro Rd
Blackrock, Cork, Ireland.
www.mercierpress.ie
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©Meda Ryan, 2003
ISBN: 978 1 85635 480 6
Epub ISBN: 978 1 85635 732 6
Mobi ISBN: 978 1 85635 769 2
This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
To the men and women of West Cork
who fought in their way, in their time,
to give us the Ireland we have today
Acknowledgments
I owe a debt of gratitude to David Willis who gave me Tom Barry’s Papers, without which this book would be incomplete. I am also indebted to John Browne, Jean Crowley, Lieut Colonel Eamonn Moriarty and Dave O’Sullivan who gave me their unique personal recordings and videos of Tom Barry.
I am extremely grateful to Professor Gearóid Ó Tuathaigh of the National University of Ireland, Galway, for reading the manuscript, for his helpful suggestions and for his advice and his encouragement.
As I look through my notebook of names and addresses, I notice with sadness that many of those who willingly gave information are no longer with us. But without their generosity of spirit I could not have completed this worthwhile study. A sincere word of gratitude is due to those who went out of their way to help me in my research, people like Brendan O’Neill and the late Dan Joe O’Mahony who drove me around and organised appointments; Dómhnall Mac Giolla Phoil helped to locate people, and with his wife Mary, was a constant source of encouragement, he also read the manuscript and offered helpful suggestions. Eily Hales McCarthy and her husband Gus were always at the other end of a telephone to listen to my problems.
Jack Lane and Michael MacEvilly have been a constant source of assistance and with Séamus Lantry, Eileen Murphy and Manus O’Riordan, kept me posted on source material and publications, so that my mailbox was never dull. Brian Murphy in his unique way provided me with the necessary stimulus to continue.
Criostóir de Baróid was always willing to offer help and advice as was Pádraig Ó Cuanacháin and Bernie Whyte. Dr T. Ryle Dwyer, Professor Eunan O’Halpin and Rena Dardis, Anvil Press, kindly supplied me with private documents, and Dr Brian Hanley gave me some source references. Sheila Barry Irlam and Gerald Barry were most helpful in putting family events into context. Seán Kelleher, Louis Whyte, Con O’Callaghan and Johnny Hayes of the Kilmichael Commemoration Committee willingly responded to my probing queries.
As well as thanking Dan Collins, Kate O’Callaghan, Donncha Ó Dulaing, and Nollaig Ó Gadhra of RTÉ for the use of documentary material, I am also grateful to Majella Breen and Ian Lee in RTÉ Sound Archives who were courteous and generous with their time as was Barbara Durack and Pat Butler of the RTÉ TV Programme Archive Department.
The directors and staff at all the libraries were most helpful. I sincerely wish to thank Kieran Wyse, Cork County Library who responded to my every query and was more than generous with his time, he, like Tim Cadogan and the late Pádraig Ó Maidín of the Cork County Library speedily replied to my requests. Della Murphy, National Library of Ireland was extremely helpful during my research and also Dr Noel Kissane and his diligent staff in the National Library Manuscript Department. Seamus Helferty and Kerry Holland, of UCD Archives Department and the efficient staff there, deserve special mention, as does the late Comdt Peter Young, and Capt. Victor Laing, Comdt Pat Brennan and the staff at the Military Archives, Dublin. Thanks also to the staff in the National Archives and Trinity College Archives staff. The kindness and assistance given by Patricia McCarthy, by Brian McGee and staff at the Cork Archives Institute and by Stella Cherry and staff at the Cork Public Museum and by Mick O’Connell, Clonakilty Museum is very much appreciated.
Thanks to the late Raymond Smith and the library staff of the Irish
Independent who were generous with their time; the library staffs of the former offices of the Irish Press, the offices of the Irish Times, the (Cork) Irish Examiner and the Southern Star, especially the Southern Star’s editor Liam O’Regan, who filled me in on incidents in relation to his father, Joe O’Regan; he also gave me his father’s personal correspondence from Tom Barry. Thomas McCarthy and Eamonn Kirwin of the Cork City Library, Noel Crowley, Mary Moroney, Maureen Comber, Peter Beirne and all other staff of Clare County Library were always most helpful and courteous, as were the Library staff at Mary Immaculate College, Limerick, Mike McGuine, Limerick City Library, Iris Neeson of the Tralee County Library and Brian Looby and Eamonn Browne, Kerry County Library and Gerry White, Collins Barracks.
I am deeply grateful to the many who supplied me with personal documents and for being generous with their time: Gerald Ahern, Dan Cahalane, Michael Collins (Waterford), Liam Deasy, Jim Kearney, Liam Lynch family, Ned O’Sullivan, Bill Hales, Maura Murphy, Ann Hales, D. V. Horgan, Jim Hurley, John Pierce, John Young, Yvonee Purcell, Cormac O’Malley for permission to use his father’s, Ernie O’Malley, papers and Leslie Bean de Barra. Paddy Connolly supplied me with photographs from his personal collection and for these I am most grateful. I am also indebted to the following family members who gave photographs: Nellie O’Donovan, Maura O’Donovan, John Young, Joan Dineen, Finbar Deasy, Brendan O’Neill, Charlotte Barrett, Bill Barrett, Gerard O’Brien, Eily Hales McCarthy, Seán Hales, Anna Hennigan, John Browne and Seán Kelleher.
There are so many who helped bring this work to fruition: Brendan Ashe, Paddy Casey, Nellie Casey, Eileen O’Brien, Christy Barrett, Joan Dineen, Margaret White, Pat Buttimer, John Whelton, Jim Kearney, Bill Powell, A. J. S. Brady, Nudge Callanan, M. J. Costello, Kathy Hayes, John L. O’Sullivan, Tom Kelleher, Paddy O’Sullivan, Jack O’Driscoll, James McCarthy, Tadgh Ó Cathasaigh, Patrick O’Sullivan, Ned Barrett (Kilbrittain), Dr Ned Barrett, Dan Canty, Charlie O’Keeffe, Annie O’Leary, Jack (Doheny) Lynch, Charlie O’Donoghue, Liam O’Donoghue, Minie Madden, Denis O’Mahony, Dan O’Callaghan, Brigid O’Mahony, Leo Meade, Kitty O’Leary, Cully Lawton, Denis O’Callaghan, Jerh Fehily, Mick McCarthy, Jerh Cronin, Den Carey, Liam French, Dan Collins, Jack O’Driscoll, Nancy Crowley, Mary Crowley, Michael Lyons, Eileen O’Mahony, Oliver O’Mahony, Lily O’Donovan Coughlan, Charlie Foley, Tom Foley, Liam O’Donoghue, Cormac MacCárthaigh, Riobárd Ó Longpuirt, Maggie Sheehan, Nora Foley Dineen, Josie Foley, Joe Walsh, Michael O’Sullivan, Mary Caverly, Nora O’Sullivan, Richard Coughlan, Liam Barrett, Bridie Crowley Manning, J. M. Feehan, Denis Lordan, Vivion de Valera, Mary Hough, Fr Donal O’Mahony, Fr John Chisholm, Kathleen Lane Lordan, Liz McEniry, Mary Leland, Cormac K. H. O’Mahony, John Fitzgerald, Dan Hourihane, May Twomey, Pat O’Donovan, Nelius Flynn, Denis Lordan, Paddy O’Brien (Girlough), Paddy O’Brien (Liscarrol), Seán Hyde, Tim O’Connell, Jim Doyle, Dan Collins, Brigid O’Mahony, Kathleen Lane, Ned Galvin, Jerh (Jerry) Cronin, Sonny O’Sullivan, Hannah O’Mahony, Billy Good, Snr, Billy Barry, Peg Barrett, John O’Donovan, Ned Young, Hannah Deasy, Molly O’Neill Walsh, Seán (John) O’Riordan, Dan Sandow O’Donovan, Miah Deasy, Bernie Whyte, Seamus O’Quigley, Seán MacBride, Frank Aiken, Ernest Blythe, Dave Neligan, Madge Hales Murphy, Denis O’Neill, James O’Mahony, Jack O’Sullivan, Brendan Vaughan, Donal McSweeney, Diarmuid Begley, Eileen Lynch O’Neill, Ruairí Ó Brádraigh, Fr T. J. (Tom) Hogan, Seán Spellissy, Maurice Healy, Colm Price, Maureen O’Sullivan, Ena O’Neill, Michael Bradley, Humphrey Lynch, Joe Cahill, and of course the late Tom Barry who was so helpful and courteous and therefore aided in the framing of this book.
Grateful thanks is also due to the staff at Brooklyn Central Library, and Mid Manhattan Library, New York, the Public Records Office, Surrey, the British Library Board Newspaper Library, also Bodleian Library, University of Oxford and the Imperial War Museum, Manuscript Department.
A sincere thank you to all at Mercier Press, who worked with me through the final draft of the manuscript. A special word of gratitude is due to members of my family and to my many relatives and friends for their patience throughout my years of research.
I want to thank in particular the people of Cork city and from there west to the shores of Bantry Bay who gave me cups of tea, full meals and even offered accommodation while I travelled throughout the area in the course of my research. Thanks is also due to the many who could not help directly but took the trouble to write or telephone explaining where information could be obtained.
If I have omitted anybody it has not been deliberate, as the contributions of all have been gratefully accepted.
Preface
In 1982, I wrote a book called The Tom Barry Story, commissioned by Mercier Press. Because, at the time I had to confine the book to a certain number of words, I didn’t use a substantial amount of my accumulated material. Therefore, when a Kilmichael ambush controversy arose in 1998, together with the question by Peter Hart, in The IRA & Its Enemies: Violence and Community in Cork 1916–1923, regarding sectarianism in West Cork IRA during the 1920–22 period, I saw the need for a fuller biography of one of the great architects of modern guerrilla warfare in Ireland’s fight for freedom. Because I had interviewed Tom Barry extensively and also the men who fought with him I believed that in the interest of historical accuracy certain issues required further investigation.
After The Tom Barry Story was published, David Willis approached me, saying he had acquired Tom Barry’s letters and documents and asked if I was interested in consulting them. Having taken a cursory look I initially dismissed the idea of using them for research, as they were in a dreadful state. Some were torn, water marked, in black plastic bags, having been salvaged by a builder while demolishing and renovating Tom Barry’s flat after his death. But, in 1998 I felt if I was to undertake writing a full biography of Tom Barry I would have to tackle this substantial body of papers. This existing collection has been extremely important in clarifying controversial aspects of his life. Furthermore, in my research I obtained a number of personal recordings of Tom Barry and a home video, together with a vast amount of material, much of it unedited and not transmitted, in the RTÉ Sound Archives and TV Archives – all recorded in my acknowledgments. Numerous records have survived in personal documents and in the various archives in Ireland and England, thus throwing new light on a man of action, who spent a lifetime, in his unique way, trying to unite Ireland under one flag.
Moreover, I had interviews with some of the men who fought with Tom Barry, in his flying column in the War of Independence, the Civil War, the IRA conflicts in the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s and right up to his death. I had accumulated a sizeable number of tape recordings and notes from men and women who were willing, honest and open with their accounts of ambushes and events.
In a certain way I have worked on this all my life. Growing up near the town of Bandon in West Cork I was acutely aware that a group of Volunteers known as the Third West Cork Brigade had played a major part in the fight for the freedom of Ireland. Before I ever heard of De Valera or Michael Collins, Tom Barry, with his flying column, was a household name.
We knew the words of ‘The Boys of Kilmichael’, ‘The Upton Ambush’ and ‘The Men of Barry’s Column’ because they were taught by nationally-minded teachers in schools and sung by local men and women doing their daily work or meeting at threshing or station parties. For me the songs had a special significance because my uncle, Pat O’Donovan was one of ‘the boys of Kilmichael’ and my mother’s family was deeply involved in the Republican movement. But I was also influenced by the fact that the Hales family, who experienced so much trauma and who were the original organisers of the Volunteers in West Cork, were neighbours. Also, during those formative years, I became acquainted with many men, each of whom were known in the locality as ‘one of the Old IRA’. My father took a great interest in history as told by these people. His family hadn’t been involved in the Volunteer movement, but he was a descendant of an evicted family. On some Sunday afternoons he would vis
it one of these old IRA men, and invariably, while quite young, I would travel with him, so I got to know these men and women who were involved in Ireland’s fight for freedom. I listened to their personal stories and I saw tears in many men’s eyes. All this was an invaluable insight for later. Furthermore, my mother’s ‘inside’ knowledge aided the discussions.
Later as I thought about writing a book on the Third West Cork Brigade, I interviewed a number of men and women during the 1970s and early 1980s. I spoke extensively to the man who trained and led the flying column – Commandant General Tom Barry. We discussed ambushes and incidents, and though I had not decided to write a biography of him at the time, he jokingly mentioned this possibility at our last meeting. Because there is overlapping in much of the nine interviews and in our many meetings and conversations, I have not dated each throughout this work, but have done so with other contributors.
I have covered the Kilmichael ambush in depth, as I knew it was vital for history that the record of what exactly occurred should be investigated in so far as this was possible. It was imperative, I felt, to explore the ambush details and subsequent records.
The necessity of being vigilant with interviewees struck me very forcibly early on. Having familiarised myself with locations, with people’s background, I soon became alert to either unintentional or perhaps deliberate suggestions of an ‘untrue’ viewpoint. While I regard oral evidence as an important part of history, as many participants would not take the trouble to consign their experience to paper, I am also aware of the importance of self-censorship, accuracy and a search for the truth. Tom Barry drew my attention to this early on when he spoke to me of the method used by Bureau of Military History members. Their brief was to record without question, every word that contributors proffered. He suggested burning that segment of the collection. This is dealt with within this book.
