Tom Barry

by Meda Ryan

  In the 23 battalion areas of Cork city and county 10,000 enrolled Volunteers backed the flying column. Those who hadn’t experi>ence in field fighting, Barry said, lacked only the arms to enable them to face any enemy. But these Volunteers carried out intelligence >work, dug trenches, scouted, guarded and arranged billets, maintained communications, collected money for the army fund – they were in fact the wall that supported Barry’s flying column.

  Added to this were the activities of Cumann na mBan who worked tirelessly. They did intelligence work, carried dispatches, mended and washed clothes and cooked meals at all hours of the day or night. They helped arrange funerals of their dead comrades, often risking their lives in doing so. (A group of Cumann na mBan girls stole Charlie Hurley’s body from the Bandon Hospital morgue at the peril of their lives.) Leslie Price, Hurley’s girlfriend, had worked long and hard. She had travelled throughout the whole of West Cork mainly on her bicycle, and encouraged the women in their work with the men so that together they would win freedom for the Irish people.

  Propping up this wall were the people of West Cork, who gave their beds, their food and their loyalty to the men of the column. The support of the people convinced Tom Barry that the cause they were working for was a righteous one. Children going to school, a woman driving to the market in a horse and cart, a publican or shopkeeper in the course of his/her daily task, employees in post offices and railways – everybody had an ear tuned, and eyes trained for the unexpected, prepared to report to the column, to do anything to help protect the lives of the men ‘on the run’. Help was often given at a price. Military reprisals in the form of houses being looted, furniture smashed, women insulted, old men prodded with rifle-butts, and houses and property burned.

  As an example of what the people were prepared to do, Tom tells of a night when, with two men, he called at a thatched house near Dunmanway where a family with young children were eking out an existence on a few acres: ‘It was five o’clock on a winter’s morning. Tired and weary, we knocked at their door. The woman of the house greeted the three of us. Having raked the fire, put on the kettle, she asked us to tend to it, as she had to go out. Putting on her working boots she went away, and we sat silent as we guessed the reason for her early morning journey.

  ‘She returned having gone half a mile to a luckier neighbour to borrow butter and eggs for her visitors. Her family could not afford these luxuries very often, but she never failed to have them when “The Boys” called. I know she would have to skimp, scrape and save to repay the borrowed luxuries later. Although acutely uncomfortable at the trouble we were causing, we dared not attempt to stop her or to refuse the eggs or the butter, as had we done so we would have hurt that fine pride so pronounced amongst the grand people who enrich West Cork.’[8]

  Dr Dorothy Stophard, who described herself as an Irish Protestant Nationalist spent some time helping the wounded IRA in the Kilbrittain/Bandon area, recalled seeing ‘families living in lofts, cattle sheds, or other makeshift dwellings whilst they scrabbled in the ruins of their burnt houses for belongings. Big houses also went up in flames, but to these Dorothy had not the entrée, being only called there on a red ticket to attend to the domestic staff.’[9]

  People risked their lives by allowing their houses to be used. O’Mahony’s home at Belrose (headquarters), where Tom, Charlie Hurley, Liam Deasy, Dick Barrett, Seán Hales, Tom Hales and many of the men of the column laughed, joked, sang and planned ambushes, was burned to the ground by Percival and his men. The night before burning this large house, they locked the five women upstairs in a room and used the rest of the house for billeting and eating. The following morning they set it alight and the flames were already soaring when Percival allowed the women to jump to safety. He showed his one touch of humanity to the horses; he had them brought out of the stables and tied to trees while he burned the outhouses. ‘A bullet would be too good for him’, commented Barry.[10]

  When Percival discovered through his ‘intelligence’ spy source that the ‘medical student’ whom he had released from his grasp was Tom Barry, he and his men went on a rampage of raiding and harassing. Several houses were burned. After the Crossbarry fight helpless civilians in the area were told to get out of their homes; they grabbed a few belongings, their small children, and stood outside as they watched their hard-earned possessions go up in flames. Now upon his return from Gougane Barra following the raking operations and further burning orgies by the British forces, Barry was incensed. He ordered reprisals by burning property of ‘active British supporters’. These included the Allin Institute – a meeting place for British Loyalists, which was situated at a strategic entrance to Bandon. The IRA broke into Bandon Brewery, stole the whiskey to set the institute ablaze in a fire which illuminated the town on a dark June night.[11]Barry wanted to teach them a lesson to ‘once and for all end their fire terror’. His ruse worked, as the enemy did not reply to those counter burnings.[12]The military recorded that their ‘policy of authorised punishments’ in burning the houses of ‘prominent members or officers of the IRA’ had found a backlash.[13]On the night the IRA burned Bandon workhouse, Barry took a small column, divided in sections, into town. Barry felt some of his men were over-confident as they casually stood on the bridge and watched another ‘symbol of British conquest’ being destroyed. After a shoot-up he moved them out, as their ‘over-confidence might easily lead to disaster’.[14]

  Notes

  [1]Pat O’Donovan, author interview 18/9/1978; Lily (O’Donovan) Coughlan, author interview 12/8/1978; Dan Cahalane, author interview 29/11/1976; Liam Deasy, author interview 5/12/1972;Tom Barry, author interview; Barry, Guerilla Days, p. 199, Deasy, pp. 283–286.

  [2]Lily (O’Donovan) Coughlan, author interview 12/8/1978. Lily and Mary’s brother Pat had fought in Kilmichael. Their home, being some distance from the main road regarded as a ‘safe house’, was a place of assembly.

  [3]Barry, The Reality, p. 48.

  [4]Tom Barry, manuscript, TB private papers; Tom Barry, The Irish Press, 28 June 1948.

  [5]Tom Barry manuscript, TB private papers; Tom Barry, The Irish Press, 28 June 1948; Frustrating a Round Up, 1/5/21, A/0618, XV111, Military Archives, Dublin.

  [6]Tom Barry to Raymond Smith, the Irish Independent, 7 July 1971.

  [7]Captured Document, TB private papers; see also Tom Barry, The Irish Press, 29 June 1948; FO’D Papers, Ms. 31,393, NLI.

  [8]Barry, Guerilla Days, p. 211.

  [9]Leon Ó Broin, Protestant Nationalists in Revolutionary Ireland: The Stopford Connection, p. 176.

  [10]Denis O’Mahony, author interview 5/4/1974.

  [11]Danny Canty, author interview 5/4/1973.

  [12]Tom Barry manuscript, TB private papers; Barry, Guerilla Days, p. 214.

  [13]Jeudwine Papers, Rebellion Vol 1. 24, IWM.

  [14]Tom Barry, Irish Press, 1 July 1948.

  12 - Appointed IRA Deputy Divisional Commander

  During the June hostilities the West Cork IRA kidnapped a number of British Loyalists, both from the armed forces and the civilian administration. ‘The action was taken to prevent the continuous shooting of prisoners by the British troops.’ Three coastguards at Howe’s Strand, three Royal Marines at Castletownsend, a British major at Bantry and four justices of the peace at Bandon and Clonakilty were all taken as hostages. The British administration was informed that should they shoot or hang any IRA, the hostages would receive similar treatment. ‘[1]

  In Bandon, as well as the justices of the peace, a party under the direction of Seán ‘Buckshot’ Hales and Jim O’Mahony kidnapped Lord Bandon under Tom Barry’s instructions. Lord Bandon, Earl of Cork and Lord Lieutenant was held in high esteem by the British government. He was a descendant of Col Bernard, a British adventurer, who for his military service ‘in destroying the Irish, had been granted the lands of the dispossessed O’Mahonys’. His first cousin, the Earl of Midleton was ‘head of the southern Unionists’.

  ‘We wrote to General Strickland and to the
British Prime Minister’ to inform them ‘that if there was one execution of one of our men held prisoners that Lord Bandon would swing from the nearest telegraph pole’.[2]

  Denis Lordan got in through the conservatory and let his comrades in through the main hall door. They looked through some rooms, but failed to find the occupants. Hales looked at Lordan, ‘As the bird has flown we will burn the nest’, he said. No preparations had been made to burn Bandon castle, so they piled some furniture and curtains and set it alight. In another detached quarter they located Lord Bandon. Seán Hales, Jim O’Mahony and Charlie O’Keeffe kidnapped him and brought him ‘out in a side car to a farmhouse near Clogagh’ where he was ‘guarded by the Clogagh Coy ... He got the best food and brandy, and whiskey daily.’[3]In his presence, Barry instructed the guard to shoot him should the British appear likely to try a recapture. He knew the threat would be implemented and so became a model prisoner. As he played cards with the men he often told ‘his guard not to make so much noise as a British rounding up party might hear’. One evening as the Essex moved towards a house in Barryroe where he was being held, the woman of the house ‘had a nightdress pulled over her clothes and she was popped into the double bed with the Earl in the hope that he might be mistaken for her husband by the soldiers. The lads hid outside.’ The Essex passed by ‘little thinking how near they were to their object’. Dorothy Stopford reflected that ‘he probably discovered more about his neighbours in Co. Cork than he had learned in seventy-odd years living amongst them in his castle.’[4]

  Tom, with Seán Hales, dictated letters to Lord Bandon which he signed. They were sent to Lloyd George and General Strickland ‘giving particulars of the fate that awaited him and appealing to them to ensure that no IRA prisoner would be killed. He [Lord Bandon] wanted the IRA taken seriously. There was also the appeal for a worthwhile truce.’ These ‘Lord Bandon’ letters were intended to put pressure on the British administration.[5]

  In June the Essex killed three Volunteers – Daniel Crowley killed near his home, Matthew Donovan was taken some distance and killed on the roadside, John Murphy, a farm labourer, was bayoneted to death in the field where he had been working. Barry said ‘when the news came of this brutal outrage, Lord Bandon’s life hung on a very slender thread’. Luckily for him ‘although three of our patriot soldiers were brutally killed by the army of occupation’ the IRA’s ‘ultimatum could not possibly have reached’ the authorities at the time.[6]

  In West Cork the chronic problem of the lack of ammunition became increasingly acute. Tom Barry, bitterly disappointed at the failure of the Italian ship to arrive, decided to resort to new tactics that he felt would have a more penetrating effect on the British government.

  Tom, with some of the column intended to attack a passing troop train at Kinsale Junction, on the Crossbarry line, went to the home of Barrett’s in Killeady. Willie, an active IRA Volunteer was away, and Tom apologetically told Mrs Barrett, who had four young children, that they would have to use her home as one of the firing positions to cover the railway station close-by. He felt guilty asking a woman for such a favour. Angrily she asked, ‘Do you think the Barretts will worry if their home is burned afterwards?’

  She simply asked for permission to take the children to the safety of a neighbour’s house. When she returned she made tea for the men before the fight. As happened many times the troops were not on the train. Later it became known that an informer had tipped them off.[7]

  The column was now involved mainly in shoot-ups. During these few weeks Barry and his men entered Bandon no less than eight times – an Essex soldier, a Black and Tan and an enemy agent were shot. Under local officers, every enemy post ‘was sniped several times’. The British forces were pestered in many areas; soldiers were fired at entering railway stations and Barry was involved in five sniping attacks on Innishannon and other barracks. It was his intention to annoy them to the extreme. They tried to bring them from their barracks but were unsuccessful in luring them to a confrontation.[8]

  The officers of Cork No. 3 Brigade were aware that the British army maintenance engineers had viewed several large buildings in West Cork that they intended to take over as temporary barracks. Field-Marshal Sir Henry Wilson noted that Marquess Curzon and the prime minister had decided to send five battalions to Silesia. Wilson said, ‘directly England was safe, every available man should go to Ireland, that even four battalions now on the Rhine ought also to go to Ireland … unless we crushed out the murder-gang this summer we should lose Ireland to the empire.’ Two days later Wilson noted that ‘Macready absolutely backs up my contention that we must knock out or at least knock under, the Sinn Féiners this summer or we shall lose Ireland … we must make our effort now, or else, tacitly and in fact, agree that we were beaten.’[9]

  One night in June Tom, Liam Deasy and other officers attended a Bandon battalion council meeting near Ballinadee and afterwards they set out for Rossmore, 17 miles away. The men were walking past Balwin’s Bridge and along the Currivreeda Road about a mile outside Bandon, when Liam Deasy said jokingly, ‘Tough on you, Tom, to be so near Bandon and yet so far from it!’

  Tom stopped, faced him with a never-let-it-be-said attitude. ‘Why shouldn’t we go in now that we are so near and have a go at the curfew patrol?’

  Liam said his challenge was a rash one, but he accepted, and immediately they changed direction. ‘He had terrier courage. He’d go in and bark and bite’. The four men went in, took up their position at Warner’s Lane, where they expected the curfew patrol to pass. They waited some time but the enemy did not come. Eventually they left the town and headed for Rossmore.

  According to Liam Deasy, ‘our visit became the talk of the town next day. The fact that four armed Volunteers, two of them well known to the townspeople, could dare to enter Bandon would soon be known to the enemy … but it had its morale value.’[10]

  Orders came from GHQ that Commandant Barry was posted to the staff of the First Southern Division, so on 26 June he led his flying column into action for the last time. He was near Rosscarbery saying goodbye to some of his comrades when word reached them that the Auxiliaries had entered the town. He wasn’t sure if it was a raid or if they were about to repossess the town. He regretted that he had only 33 men with him. Within 20 minutes he had them regrouped in three sections and they were on the march. One section was sent to enter the town from the high ground. With the stronger IRA group he would open the attack from the east. They advanced to engage what was believed to be a body of 150 Auxiliaries.

  A burst of fire was heard when the western section encountered a few of the enemy. After a skirmish the enemy rapidly retired. Barry and his two sections engaged the enemy wounding some. After about 15 minutes ‘of wild and erratic fire’ Barry with his small party knew it would be foolhardy to continue when the odds were too heavily against them. He withdrew his men eastwards and was not pursued by the Auxiliaries. Later he heard that the Auxies had withdrawn around the same time.[11]

  Tom headed back to headquarters to meet Liam Deasy and others.

  On 29 June, Tom and Liam set out for North Cork near the Kerry border where a divisional training camp was to open on 1 July for a fortnight. Liam Lynch had appointed Tom as operations’ officer and IRA deputy divisional commander of the First Southern Division. He was to conduct this training camp which was to be attended by the commandants and three senior officers from each of the nine brigade areas.[12]Barry was now the first IRA deputy divisional O/C in Ireland. He was in control of co-ordinating all flying columns in Cork, Kerry, Waterford and West Limerick. Gearóid O’Sullivan, adjutant general, told him that Michael Collins and GHQ ‘had decided on the appointment before Liam Lynch had suggested it’. When Barry questioned the adjutant on ‘the grave responsibility of this position’ especially if an occasion arose when Barry himself disagreed with Lynch ‘on strategy or major tactics about the use of those armed men.’ The adjutant assured Barry that Lynch had agreed to give him full divisional O/C respon
sibility. This divisional area ‘was both numerically and in fighting power as strong as the three next divisions in Ireland combined’. (Barry was again given this title within the army executive council during the Civil War.)

  Tom wasn’t in agreement with the idea of a divisional training camp then, nor was he with the hindsight of almost 60 years. His first objection had to do with security. By bringing together so many senior officers, he felt that the IRA was running the risk of putting the entire armed effort in the south-west of Ireland in jeopardy. If the officers were to be captured or wiped out in a confrontation it would cripple the decision-making of the remaining Volunteers, as well as being a devastating blow to morale.

  His other objection was based upon his opinion that guerrilla warfare can only be learned in the field and cannot be taught. He said that the amount to be learned in the proposed camp could be circulated to all brigades on half a sheet of notepaper. In July 1971, he told Raymond Smith that the circular could have read: ‘Select as your active service leaders men who are dedicated, will lead from the front are not afraid to die. Men who will judge a situation, attack or refuse battle, who realise that they and their Volunteers are alone: men who must above all be security minded, make instant decisions and ensure that they are carried out.’[13]