Tom Barry

by Meda Ryan

  Tom turned to the man who dropped his Webley revolver, horrified at having shot his best friend. When Tom spoke he didn’t answer but gave a moan and collapsed. Apparently, as Tom was speaking, he had been unconsciously fingering the trigger of his revolver and had unknowingly pressed the very light spring-trigger. This was an incident Tom was to remember all his life with sadness as he felt it was the man’s nervousness in his presence that had caused the accident.[29]

  There were only two other fatal accidents with firearms in the West Cork flying column. Captain Jeremiah O’Mahony, who had fought at Kilmichael, was one night cleaning his rifle in December 1920 at home when it went off and shot him. Timothy Whooley died under similar circumstances and Johnny O’Brien of Clounbuig escaped with a grazed head in an earlier incident.

  By early March 1921, enemy intimidation presented a problem for the flying column. Tom, accompanied by Mick Crowley and two other rifle-men, went to Castletown-Kenneigh on brigade business. At Nyhan’s they were informed that on that morning a Dunmanway Auxiliary Company had occupied the village of Ballineen in force, rounded up all the men and formed them into what they called ‘Civil Guard’. They instructed them to report on IRA movements and fill in IRA-made road-trenches. With an Auxiliary escort and under threat of death they were forced to work.

  Instantly, Barry decided that this move of using civilians against Irishmen had to be cracked. With a few men he went to a small hill about 400 yards from the road; down below they saw about two dozen civilians with shovels filling in a deep trench. Their escort lay in positions behind the adjoining fence and all that could be seen were their berets and the barrels of their rifles. Barry instructed his companions to spatter the ground with shots but not to kill anyone. The Auxiliaries replied and the new ‘Civil Guard’ scattered. When a few days later the Auxiliaries tried to round up more men for their operation, they were told they would prefer to be killed by the Auxiliaries than by the IRA. So that trick by the forces wasn’t tried again.

  In all cases civilians were not to be inconvenienced Barry decided. Alternative roads suitable for the horse and cart, transport for the ordinary people, but not suitable for army lorries were to be mapped out.

  At a special council meeting of the Anti Sinn Féin Society held in Cork on 5 December 1920, ‘it was proposed and passed’ that in Bandon where ‘crown forces may be molested’ that Sinn Féin and IRA ‘whether leaders or not three persons will be taken and shot’, immediately ‘after which the chapel bell will toll’.

  Further ‘it was decided that the houses and property of these people should be burned and their families taken and detained’. To this end notices were posted in Bandon. ‘Remember Irishmen … internment camps are ready for all suspicious persons … the safest thing for you to do is to take your hands out of your pockets if you have them in, or you are liable to be shot on sight.’ The notice ended, ‘God Save the King. God Save Ireland – Members of the crown forces’.[30]

  Barry, in Guerilla Days, describes the 2–4 February 1921 as ‘The Twelve Dark Days’ because during that period 11 officers and IRA men were killed. Some, like the two Coffey brothers, were killed in their beds. Two masked civilians, one of them a woman known as ‘Foxy Bess’, had led the killers directly to the room where the young men slept. The killers were members of the British Action espionage circle, known also as The Protestant Action Group.

  Paddy Crowley, a battalion commandant, was ill in bed at O’Neill’s, Maryborough. Essex men raided the house. Unable to hide, he ran, was wounded, then fell and they shot him where he lay. Barry said that not one of their enemy had been killed during that period. ‘The morale of our units was bound to suffer if fatal casualties continued, with none being inflicted on the enemy’. Hundreds of young men, within a radius of twenty miles around Bandon were arrested. All reported being beaten and tortured, some were hoisted as ‘stool pigeons’ in military lorries that travelled the countryside on raids. Many men not involved in the IRA were jailed.[31]

  ‘Drumhead court-martials for dealing with rebels caught with arms in their hands’ were set up, according to General Percival’. Penalties for harbouring rebels, or for failing to report ambushes, etc., or for giving the wrong name’ were enforced.[32]

  ‘Under propaganda auspices a weekly incentive to “murder” indiscriminately was issued to the police in the form of a weekly summary printed and published by the government’, General Crozier records, ‘while instructions to “murder and ask questions after” were issued secretly to selected police officers from Dublin Castle.’ The district county inspector’s ‘weekly summary’ contained statistics, details of spies, casualties, burnings, killing – from a propaganda viewpoint. The ‘stamping out of terrorism by murder’ was instituted.[33]

  For the future Barry decided he would not show mercy to the Bandon Essex Regiment under Percival as they continued to torture, wound and kill defenceless IRA prisoners. They lacked mercy to the sick, the unarmed, and created havoc when raiding homes and burned many. ‘They had killed in us too the virtue for mercy … Orders issued by me in 1921 were to shoot every member of the Essex at sight, armed or unarmed, and not to accept their surrender under any circumstances. We had tried to play the game of war by the rules accepted by the civilised world’, but now immunity had come to an end. In other areas the rules of war were to be observed, mercy would be shown, but not in Bandon.[34]

  Barry quotes Napoleon as having allegedly said, ‘There are two levers for moving men: interest and fear’; but he himself added a third, counter-terror. ‘The Essex, the Auxiliaries and all British terrorist forces would be destroyed as far as our strength was capable of killing them’, he wrote.[35]

  Barry decided to have another go at the Bandon stronghold. A 44 strong column was mustered on 23 February for another attack on a curfew patrol. The men carried rifles and pistols and wore their new uniforms – a khaki-type coat with a cape at the back. As usual Barry had them detailed and divided into sections for their approach to the town. At 8.20 p.m. they reached their chosen place of attack. ‘Accurate timing was essential’. Barry, as column commander believed it was imperative that the decision when to attack rested with him. He went forward alone, clearly visible under a full moon, clad in uniform, leggings and full field equipment. Mick Crowley followed a distance behind with a section, they crossed the bridge at the end of the town where the section stopped. Barry went up South Main Street and met an IRA sympathiser who told him that the patrol was coming. Barry hastened back towards the scout to signal the column to advance.

  But as he made his way back, the sound of marching feet and English voices brought him to an abrupt halt. His first reaction was to run. He said it is amazing how quickly things run through your head when confronted with a situation, how quickly you think and dismiss thoughts. He was sure that it was the end. There was no escape. Should he make a run for it? ‘No. My reason flashed the warning that if I turned and ran I would be shot in the back. I stood my ground as five military rounded the North Main Street corner and advanced across the bridge towards me.’

  The gunfight commenced. Facing the enemy Barry opened fire with revolver in one hand and an automatic in the other. Mick Crowley, whom he had posted at the north end of the bridge, joined in. The Tan swinging his revolver as he came into view was the first to fall. A second staggered across the road and then fell. Barry missed the third as he sprang to the other side of the road, but Crowley got him. The fourth man had bolted back to the barracks at the sound of the first shot and the fifth had dropped to the ground, as a trained soldier will when under fire. Now he leaped up, sprang round the corner escaping the first shot aimed at him. Barry in a fury ran after him brandishing his guns but didn’t fire, because, as he says, ‘I was mad. I just wanted to get my hands on him’. Confronting, in a close range situation, Constable Perrier, a known spy in the dreaded Essex Regiment whom they had been watching, made him lose his temper. Perrier had made attempts to join the IRA under the guise of a deserter. �
�I was guilty of the most senseless act of my life, for I ran after him,’ Barry admitted. (A man who was so disciplined and so insistent on discipline could view this action as a reckless act. On reflection later, he was critical of this action, as he said it was an irrational act and he recorded that Perrier could have turned around and shot him.)

  Still running, Barry slipped his revolver into his pocket to free his left hand: he retained the colt automatic in his right hand. The panic-stricken soldier ran into an open doorway. As he cleared the small counter Barry vaulted after him, grabbing him by the shoulder. He shook him and shot him twice at point-blank range.[36]

  ‘Are you all right in there,’ shouted Tom Kelleher, who had followed him. Kelleher remained at the door in case more British military should come along.

  ‘I got the bloody fellow,’ Barry said, as he emerged.

  ‘Why didn’t you fire on him going in?’

  ‘I wanted to shake the bastard first.’

  Unperturbed Barry began to check his gun and reload it.

  ‘You would think the British were a hundred miles away,’ Tom Kelleher recalled.

  Barry shook himself, straightened his shoulders: ‘a spy. Bastard! Pretending he was in sympathy with us.’[37]

  He bolted down the street to meet the remainder of the column who were dealing with the other patrol. As Kelleher and Barry ran, bullets were knocking sparks off the flagstones behind them. But as Jim Kearney says, ‘There was never a bullet made to shoot Barry.’[38]

  Notes

  [1]The Times, 6 to 9 December 1920. Michael Collins is titled ‘Commander-in-Chief of Sinn Féin’. Archbishop Clune was uncle of Conor Clune who was shot and tortured while in custody on the eve of ‘Bloody Sunday’.

  [2] See Southern Star, December and January 1920 and 1921; see also Cork Examiner for a number of attacks.

  [3] Tom Barry interview, he spoke of the difficulty of that period and ‘what seemed an insurmountable task ahead’.

  [4] Jim Kearney, author interview 12/9/1974.

  [5] Tom Barry to Mr Dempsey, editor, Irish Press, 23/7/1949, TB private papers.

  [6] Tom Barry manuscript, TB private papers.

  [7] Leslie Price, author interview 22/4/1973; see Ryan, Michael Collins and the Women, pp. 78–80; Leslie Price Papers; Major General Strickland interview, The Irish Times, 22 January, 1921.

  [8] Tom Barry manuscript, TB private papers; Tom Barry to Nollaig Ó Gadhra, 1969, RTÉ Sound Archives; Tom Barry, author interview.

  [9] Tom Barry’s notes, TB private papers; see also Barry, Guerilla Days, pp. 70–73.

  [10] Tom Barry manuscript, TB private papers; Tom Barry to UCG students 1969, recording courtesy of John Browne; see also Barry, Guerilla Days, p. 75.

  [11] Tom Barry, author interview.

  [12] John L. O’Sullivan, author interview 31/7/1974.

  [13] Tom Barry, manuscript TB private papers; Barry, Guerilla Days, p. 81; radio recording, not transmitted, RTÉ Sound Archives; Tom Barry, UCG Lecture, 1969, recording courtesy of John Browne; see also Cork Examiner, 4 February 1921.

  [14] F. Begley to Tom Barry 12/5/47; Mick Deasy to Tom Barry 21/5/48, TB private papers; Tom Barry manuscript, TB private papers; John Whelton, author interview 15/10/1980; Pat Buttimer, author interview 15/10/1980; Barry, Guerilla Days, pp. 78–86; Butler, pp. 102–3.

  [15] Jim Kearney, author interview 31/3/1975.

  [16] Jack O’Sullivan, author interview 18/2/1975; Jim Kearney, author interview 31/3/1975; John Whelton, author interview 15/10/1980; Pat Buttimer, author interview 15/10/1980; Tom Barry, UCG Lecture, recording, courtesy of John Browne.

  [17] Michael Collins to Helena, 5/3/1921, John Pierce private papers; see Ryan Michael Collins and the Women, p. 81; also Cork Examiner, 4 February 1921.

  [18]An t-Óglach, 13 May, 1921; Irish Times, 4 February 1921; Daily newspapers, 25 April 1921.

  [19] Tom Barry, Notes and manuscript, TB private papers.

  [20] Liam O’Regan, editor, Southern Star, son of Joe O’Regan, document in his possession. Joe O’Regan, Aughadown was a member of the Lisheen IRA Cumann, and Barney O’Driscoll, Union Hall, was ‘also a member of Skibbereen Urban council’.

  [21] Tom Barry, manuscript, TB private papers; also Barry, Guerilla Days, pp. 91, 92.

  [22] Kathy Hayes, author interview 14/9/1974; also Tom Barry manuscript, TB private papers.

  [23] Tom Barry, Lecture to UCG students, 1969, recording, courtesy of John Browne.

  [24]The IRA men killed were: Lieut John (Seán) Phelan, Lieut Patrick O’Sullivan, section commander, Bart Falvey. Wounded IRA men were: Seán Hartnett, Dan O’Mahony (Belrose) and Charlie Hurley. See Tom Kelleher, The Kerryman, 7 October 1967; Nollaig Ó Gadhra, 1969, RTÉ Sound Archives; see Michael Lyons, Bandon Historical Journal, 16, No. 12 (1996).

  [25] Tom Barry to Joe O’Regan, 2/4/1968, this was a response to Joe O’Regan’s ‘tribute to Dan O’Brien’, Private Collection, Liam O’Regan, editor, Southern Star.

  [26]Jim Kearney, author interview 31/3/1975; Tom Kelleher, author interview 9/4/1979.

  [27] Flor Begley, P17b/111, O’M. Papers, UCDA; Tom Barry, author interview.

  [28]Cork Examiner, February 1921; Barry, Guerilla Days, p. 96. Deasy, Towards Ireland Free, p. 171; correspondence between T. [Tom] O’Neill and Tom Barry, 3/5/48, 5/5/48, 29/5/48, TB private papers. O’Neill states that there were 10 Volunteers inside the ditch and these escaped.

  [29] Tom Barry’s manuscript, TB private papers.

  [30] Captured document, Florence O’D Papers, MS.321,460, NLI.

  [31] Percival Papers, ‘stool pigeons’, IWM; Tom Barry manuscript, TB private papers; correspondence and questionnaire between Jim O’Mahony and Tom Barry 15/2/1947 & 24/2/47, TB private papers; also Barry, Guerilla Days, p. 98.

  [32] Percival Papers, 4/1–8, IWM.

  [33] Crozier, pp. 168, 287; see also Crozier, Appendix C, D, E, F.

  [34] Barry, Guerilla Days, pp. 98, 99.

  [35] Tom Barry’s notes, TB private papers; see also Barry, Guerilla Days, p. 99.

  [36] Tom Barry manuscript, TB private papers. British official communique, 24 February 1921, named the dead as Constable Perrier, Constable Kerins, Corporal Stubbs and Private Knight of the Essex Regiment.

  [37] Tom Kelleher, author interview 9/4/1979; also Tom Barry’s manuscript, TB private papers; see also Barry, Guerilla Days, p. 102.

  [38] Jim Kearney, author interview 18/10/1980.

  7 - Percival’s Spies and Informers

  Reaching the rendezvous outside Bandon, Barry found the two other sections waiting. John Lordan captured two naval officers and following interrogation, Barry allowed them to go free ‘as they were not guilty of any murder of unarmed Irishmen’. But he gave them a note for Percival. He named unarmed IRA men who were tortured to death and warned him of dire consequences. ‘Henceforth your unit, in common with other terrorists, will be subject to reprisals for every outrage committed by it … The Essex Regiment has burned and destroyed nearly 50 West Cork homes, long before such burnings had become the official policy of the British military government in Ireland.’[1]

  Major C. J. Street, British intelligence officer downplayed the lawlessness of the Auxiliaries as ‘a few bad apples’ within the force. However, Lloyd George and his cabinet acknowledged their ruthlessness in December 1920 when Archbishop Clune was negotiating a settlement between both countries. In a three-point plan that included the surrender of arms, etc., government knowledge of a vendetta was exposed. Point No. 3 recorded:

  Sinn Féin to order the cessation of all violence in return for which the government to stop reprisals of shop looting, raids, burnings, floggings, execution without court-martial (not admitted) and people only to be executed after due court-martial.[2]

  Lord Russell acknowledged that some of the Auxiliaries ‘exploits were shameful and the army’s reputation suffered through them.’[3]

  Fire-raising gangs accompanied raiding parties and roved over West Cork. Farmhouses, labour
ers’ cottages and shops went up in flames leaving desolation and misery in their wake. Over 50 years later the harrowing scenes of ‘mothers with young families out under a tarpaulin tent or in a hen house on a bitter winter’s night’ after their home and belongings were gutted was etched in Barry’s memory. This was ‘mostly always done with glee’. Dan Cahalane recalled many families who ‘suffered this terrible torture. It had to be stopped.’[4]

  To counter this terror, GHQ sanctioned the burning of British Loyalist homes in retaliation. ‘The West Cork Brigade was slow to commence a campaign of counter-burnings’, said Barry. ‘They [British military] started the burning, as they did with the Boers in South Africa. We found it necessary to react’.[5] When the threat was ignored, the IRA burned two Loyalist houses for each Nationalist house burned. This created an outcry from the British Loyalists in West Cork. Now caught-up in terrorism they demanded that British forces should cease destroying Republican homes. Members in the House of Commons pleaded on behalf of their constituents, stating that two small farmhouses were worth less than £1,000, whereas four large British Loyalists houses were worth over £20,000. Bill Hales, whose home was burned to the ground, said ‘the counter-terror worked’. Though many Republican homes had been destroyed, many were now saved ‘from destruction’.[6]

  Michael Collins wrote: ‘for myself my conscience is clear. There is no crime in detecting and destroying, in war time, the spy and the informer’.[7] So orders went out from GHQ to the brigades of the IRA. In the Third West Cork Brigade orders were transmitted in a memorandum by the brigade intelligence officer to battalion commanders to procure evidence of suspected spies and to intensify raids on mail carriers and post offices, thus obtaining further evidence. Women helped in this process.