Tom Barry

by Meda Ryan

  (e) In a short report on an ambush, would Barry write, ‘the action was carried out successfully’ against ‘the Auxiliary Police from Macroom Castle’ (giving them their full title)?

  (f) This report lists ‘the captures’. There is a discrepancy between this list and what Barry in later years wrote that they captured. The obvious explanation being that the Castle Auxiliaries knew what went out in the tenders and did not return – hence accuracy from their viewpoint when compiling the ‘Commandant’s report’. However, the Mills bomb thrown by Barry must have destroyed some arms and ammunition, also Barry and command post men, used captured ammunition in the conclusion of the fight, as he has stated. Furthermore, listed among ‘the captures’ on the ‘Rebel Commandant’s report’ are ‘two lorries, which were subsequently burnt.’ It is unlikely that Barry would list the lorries as ‘captures’ when, elsewhere he has stated, ‘we burned the lorries’, rather than ‘were subsequently burnt’. Moreover, the Castle Auxiliaries saw fit not to mention the loss of important documentation. In all the records of the Kilmichael ‘captures’ Barry mentions ‘most important of all’ was the sandbag full of Auxies’ papers and notebooks’ among the ‘captured’ items.

  (g) The last sentence of this report says: ‘our casualties were: One killed, and two who have subsequently died of wounds.’ It was the other way round. Two were killed and one died of wounds. This, and the P.S. are the most telling sentences in the report and it demonstrates that Tom Barry was not the author.

  (h) The ‘Rebel Commandant’s’ P. S. blames the ‘casualties to the fact that these three men (who were part of No. 2 section) were too anxious to get into close quarters with the enemy … they discarded their cover, and … P. Deasy was killed [note the word ‘killed’] by a revolver bullet from one of the enemy whom he thought dead.’ This conveys the impression that Deasy got ‘into close quarters’ on the road. None of No. 2 section went on the road during the ambush. These men did not move closer to the enemy, they remained in their positions, but the few stood up during the ‘surrender’ call when firing ceased.[76]

  (i) If Barry wrote that report for Liam Deasy and Charlie Hurley would he say ‘They were our best men …’ Barry would have to command the remaining men in the continuing conflict. But most important, would he single out P. Deasy (he has called him Pat Deasy elsewhere) and say he was killed in the ambush when he wasn’t? Barry knew he was gravely injured. Would Barry not mention the names of the two men (section commander – Michael McCarthy and Jim O’Sullivan), who were killed outright and to whom he had asked the column to ‘present arms’? Why would he deliberately write that these were the ‘two who have subsequently died of wounds’? Pat Deasy fatally wounded, died around 10 p.m. in Buttimer’s, some distance away. Seán Falvey, a dispatch scout, took the news to Barry in Granure that night. (Note: the official British report also mentions P. Deasy not Pat Deasy.)

  Of particular note is the omission from the report of Barry standing on the road to confront the lorries. Barry was unlikely to forget it, so if he wrote this report he would surely have mentioned the daring ploy that marked the opening of the attack.

  Peter Hart states that this ‘authentic captured document seems unquestionable’, because it ‘contains details such as the division of the column into three sections and their deployment, the length of the march to Kilmichael, the time the ambush took place, and the fact that two of the three IRA casualties died of wounds.’[77]

  Yet, as has been analysed, the sub-sections, the opening time, and in particular the incorrect statement on deaths, in the ‘Commandant’s report’ contrast greatly from the available evidence. Therefore, a definite question mark must be placed over the authenticity of the document.[78]

  It is significant that this ‘Rebel Commandant’s report’ does not tally with the British official version which has a ‘telling’ sentence. The official British report describes the hacking of bodies with axes and brutal massacre, then states: ‘The Commandant of the Brigade Flying Column omitted all mention of these incidents from his report.’ Logic dictates he would omit it in a report for fellow officers. If, as seems likely, they forged the ‘Rebel Commandant’s report’, then the omission of the savagery from it adds credibility to the document. Furthermore, it aids their official version. Significant also is the statement in the alleged Barry’s Report that the column had ‘started their return journey’ when they ‘sighted two enemy lorries’, then ‘divided the column into three sections’ and attacked the enemy.

  Caught unawares, they came at the patrol with what they describe in their own propaganda introduction as the ‘cold-blooded brutality’ of a ‘Murder Gang’ without discipline. Moreover, one official military report of the event states: ‘This atrocity emphasised the lawless state of Co. Cork and the surrounding counties, and the inadequacy of the existing powers to deal with the situation there.’[79]

  ‘It was as a bloodthirsty commander that the British propagandists depicted me in the aftermath of Kilmichael,’ Tom Barry wrote, ‘and it was as monsters that my men of the column and I, who had fought at Kilmichael, were presented. The British, of course, did not make the slightest reference to the false surrender of the Auxiliaries.’[80]

  The British cabinet accepted the ambush as ‘a military operation’. Lloyd George sent over Sir Hamar Greenwood, chief secretary for Ireland. It ‘seemed to him’, to Bonar Law and to Tom Jones that this ambush was ‘of a different character from the preceding operations. The others were assassinations. This last was a military operation,’ Tom Jones records, ‘and there was a good deal to be said for declaring a state of siege or promulgating martial law in that corner of Ireland.’[81]

  Of significant importance is the testimony of Brigadier General Crozier, commander of the Auxiliaries from 1919 to 1920. He came to Ireland (having resigned) ‘as a civilian, at the request of Sir Hamar Greenwood to give evidence’ on the Kilmichael ambush. In his ‘Unpublished Memoirs’ he wrote:

  I took particular care to enquire into this story of mutilation, as it appeared to me to be quite unlike the normal or abnormal act of Irishmen. The correct story I found to be as follows: The lorries were held up by land mines and the leading lorry was partly destroyed. The men were called upon to surrender and did so throwing up their hands and grounding their rifles. Each policeman carried a revolver in addition to a rifle. One policeman shot a Sinn Féiner at close quarters with his revolver after he had grounded his rifle and put his hands up. A hand-to-hand combat of the fiercest kind ensued, the butts of rifles, revolvers, crowbars being used, hence the battered condition of the police. When it is intended to kill a man with a butt-end there is no hitting him in the legs.[82]

  This account clarifies that the ‘false surrender’ story was in circulation in the area shortly after the ambush, and was not fabricated by Tom Barry or anybody else later.

  Crozier said that ‘the Auxiliary police were soldiers in disguise under no army and no R.I.C. code.’ His endorsement is weighty. He resigned from his position ‘because the combat was being carried out on foul lines, by selected and foul men, for a grossly foul purpose, based on the most satanic of all rules that “the end justifies the means”.’[83]

  Out of the Kilmichael ambush was there an end to be justified, was a forged report a means to do so? Who wrote the ‘Rebel Commandant’s report’ that Peter Hart describes as Barry’s ‘after-action report’ and why the need?[84]

  Barry wrote in his memoirs:

  The foulest of all British weapons has ever been ‘atrocity’ propaganda. No axe was in possession of the I.R.A. and no corpse was interfered with. This mutilation allegation was a vicious and calumnious lie. Well may one ask where Lord French got his information ... To clinch this exposure of lying British propaganda, it is as well to state here that after the Truce with the British in July 1921, Sir Alfred Cope, then assistant British under-secretary for Ireland, called on me in Cork for a written statement that the I.R.A. had killed the Auxiliaries in Kilmichael, since thi
s was essential before the British government could pay compensation to the dependents. He informed me that the British government had no evidence as to how these men had met their deaths, as there were no survivors to testify in court and the dying Auxiliary had never recovered consciousness. Incidentally, he was refused any statement.[85]

  ‘It was a vicious fight. There was no mutilation’. he told history students in UCG he wanted ‘to nail that propaganda. There was hand to hand fighting, butts of rifles were used.’[86]

  It was incorrect to tell Tom Barry in 1921 that the survivor did not recover consciousness. Not conscious enough, perhaps, to swear to tell the truth about the false surrender. Was it in the hope of getting a statement from Barry that Cope did not give Barry the full facts? If the British establishment had already got ‘The Rebel Commandant’s report’ why were they still looking for one from ‘The Rebel Commandant’? Barry’s refusal of Cope’s request meant the invention of ‘an alternative’, according to Stephen Brady.[87]‘It was right to say,’ the Cork Examiner reported in January 1921, that ‘as there was no living [British Military] witness to tell exactly what happened, it could only be conjectured.’[88]

  A. J. S. (Stephen) Brady was an assistant in T. P. Grainger’s solicitor’s office – the firm that represented and processed the claims for the relatives of the Auxiliaries killed at Kilmichael. Mr Brady confirmed that Lieut H. F. Forde received £10,000, after the Truce had been called. The Freeman’s Journal had a photograph of Forde in the Military Hospital, Cork on 17 January 1921. ‘He was confined to a wheelchair for some time, later he walked with a pronounced limp and lived until a few years ago’, Mr Brady recalled in November 1980.[89]Stephen Brady was aware that ‘the statement’ of the castle men was ‘exaggerated’. The ‘more harrowing it [the ambush] was, the hacking of bodies and the cruelty of the engagement, the better the compensation.’ Mr Brady was aware that Cope had called to Tom Barry ‘and he had refused to co-operate’. In the solicitor’s office ‘Cope discussed the position with the chief [his boss] and then left for the castle. They wanted a statement – a report saying there was an ambush or attack and that they killed the Auxiliaries outright … Barry was liaison officer around that time.’ Contact between the solicitors’ office and the castle was ‘intense’ after which the ‘reports from the two sides’ were presented to the solicitor, which led to the final report (all seen by Brady). ‘I won’t say how that came about, but it helped the families to get good compensation,’ said Mr Brady. Wondering what he meant by ‘reports from the two sides’, I queried it.

  ‘I’m not saying. It’s just that the families needed good evidence for their compensation case. Naturally their comrades helped’, Mr Brady said. (Cope and the castle Auxiliaries were obviously ‘the two sides’. I was unaware at that time of the existence of the alleged ‘Commandant’s’ (Barry’s) report and did not therefore pursue the issue.)[90]Bill Munroe, an Auxiliary in the castle gives his exaggerated account of ‘the ambushers’ in lorries and khaki uniforms. The official reports have echoes of this account. There is no mention of a false surrender. ‘Out of 21 men, 20 lay on the road dead’ where ‘at least 3 took a long time to die’, according to Munroe.

  Auxiliary Munroe recorded that, ‘after the first shock had passed our immediate reaction was to hunt down as many of the ambushers as we could and exterminate them.’[91]

  Percival found that, ‘Owing to the constant searches carried out by crown forces it was exceedingly difficult for the IRA to issue anything in the way of written orders, but they did succeed … largely by verbal instructions.’[92]

  Referring to the ‘Rebel Commandant’s report’ Peter Hart has asked, ‘If it was a forgery, why was it kept secret? Why wasn’t it written to support the British version?’[93]

  It seems to have fulfilled the requirements for the establishment’s purpose to propound the report as Barry’s. This ‘Rebel Commandant’s report’ should have eliminated the necessity for secrecy, would have made great newspaper headlines, would have aided British propaganda, would have militated against Tom Barry, the IRA and GHQ, if it was a genuine document.

  Dr Jeremiah Kelleher, Macroom coroner examined the bodies of the dead Auxiliaries. Since the Restoration of Order in Ireland Act became law on 9 August 1920, Secret Military Courts of Enquiry conducted coroners’ inquests. Dr Kelleher had always been anti-Republican. Moreover, when the IRA shot his son, an RIC man in Longford, he became even more extreme in his views. However, ‘his code of honour has to be referred to, because when ever he treated IRA men it is believed that he kept it confidential.’[94]

  On Tuesday 30 November, the day after the bodies were brought in, ‘A Military Inquiry in lieu of inquest was opened at Macroom Castle … into the cause of death of the victims of the ambush.’ The injuries of sixteen Auxiliaries who were killed are listed. There is no mention of an axe or brutal beating. A. F. Poole died from ‘bullet wounds in chest and shoulder; fracture of bones of face, caused by heavy instrument’. He was in the first lorry, which was hit by the Mills bomb. Men had bullet wounds, lacerations, skull wounds and other severe injuries. Two, already dead of wounds, received a further wound as the fighting continued. It lists two of the men who had ‘explosive bullet’ wounds.[95]

  ‘A “Mills bomb” (No. 36 Mk. 1 Grenade) exploded in the cab of the first lorry. The casing of the “Mills bomb” was made of cast iron and was deeply scored to facilitate fragmentation. When the grenade exploded in the confined space of the cab, those shrapnel fragments would have inflicted horrific jagged wounds on the driver and front seat passenger, and also on some of the furtherest forward of the Auxiliaries, who were in the rear of the open-top lorry, whether killed outright or not’, according to Lieut Col Eamonn Moriarty. Furthermore, as Barry wrote, ‘a few [Volunteers] had revolvers’. These were captured from British sources. ‘The British Welbey revolver of the period fired a ·455 inch round-nosed, soft lead bullet … weighing 17 gram. It was a low velocity round … and did not have great penetrative power. On impact it would flatten and its cross-section area would increase significantly, thus causing gaping wounds with great internal damage’. In addition there were the captured, what the medical report called ‘explosive bullets’. These were ‘expanding bullets’, Lieut Col Eamonn Moriarty explained, as, ‘at that time, there was no such thing as an explosive bullet’. Service bullets with the point cut (scored) and doctored to open on impact were used by the Auxiliaries. These bullets would expand on impact thus causing considerable damage, bone fragmentation and nasty wounds. When this type of bullet is discharged, ‘its destructive effect on bone and tissue is greater than that caused by an internal charge’.[96]

  It is not known whether the bullets that Barry and his men picked up on that day or previously in the Toureen ambush or elsewhere were expanding bullets. What is known is that most of the arms and ammunition that the Volunteers used were captured from the British military. Moreover, there was close fighting as Barry described, with ‘rifle-butts replacing rifle-shots’ with pressure, and ‘point blank’ shots. On contact all would have created considerable body disfigurement. Barry wrote that the fight between the Volunteers and the Auxiliaries after the Mills bomb had been thrown was intense and even became ‘a hand-to-hand one. Revolvers were used at point blank range.’[97]

  Bill Munroe, one of the Auxiliaries who came to collect the bodies next day, said: ‘They [the Auxiliaries] had put up a tremendous fight as there were literally hundreds of empty [cartridge] cases beside them … They must have kept the enemy under cover for a comparatively long time.’[98]

  On 11 January 1921, at Macroom Courthouse, County Court Judge Hynes ‘took up the hearing of malicious injury applications’. ‘Huge’ sums were sought. Concluding the compensation plea, counsel said that because of the severity of injuries ‘which these undoubtedly were’ awards were sought ‘for compensation tempered with generosity rather than with justice.’[99]

  On Saturday 15 January at Macroom Quarter Sessions Judge Hy
nes delivered his judgement in connection with claims made by relatives of the ‘15 killed and one dangerously wounded.’ (Some reports state 15 killed, with other reports state 16, but the judge here mentions 15.) ‘The wounded survivor was incapable of giving any evidence, so not one of the unhappy party was alive to give one any description of the ambush,’ according to the report. But ‘there could be no doubt but that fifteen of the party were murdered. So the claim for compensation came within the Provisions of the Criminal Injuries Act 1919 as amended by the Criminal Injuries Act 1920.’

  The families were awarded varying amounts. F. H. Forde’s father sought compensation of £15,000. However, the judge withheld judgement for a sitting in Bandon at some further date, stating that compensation should be about £9,000, but he ‘would not say until he further considered the matter whether it should be £8,000 or £10,000.’ It took some months before ‘the huge sums’ were given to the victims after all the documentation was assembled.[100]

  There was a tendency towards exaggeration – Professor John A. Murphy, in a television documentary on the Kilmichael ambush said that ‘under the Malicious Injuries Act … the more horrific the account, the greater the compensation.’[101]

  On Monday 29 November 1920 in the House of Commons Sir Hamar Greenwood said he had received a telegram that fifteen ‘Auxiliary officers’ under District Inspector Craik were killed and ‘one is missing and one was wounded’. They had been ‘ambushed by eighty to a hundred men’. The head of the police force sent him a further telegram that the ambushers were all dressed ‘in khaki, with steel helmets’ fired ‘from both sides of the road … poor fellows were disarmed, and brutally murdered. The bodies were rifled …’ Sir Hamar Greenwood said, ‘I do not think the House would care to pursue questions about some odd patrol in Ulster, or the burning of some farm, in the face of this challenge to the authority of this house and of civilisation (cheers).’[102]