Tom Barry

by Meda Ryan

Barry said that is was useless to try to train men ‘who had already proved that they neither could not, nor would not fight’. Instead of forming divisions, he felt that by the opening of 1921, GHQ should have weeded out useless commanders and staffs who hindered other brigade areas.

  Barry wanted men with initiative and aggression. Such men could have come to the active areas from the inactive ones. Such a system would be superior to any camp training, he insisted, because they would see and participate in action. He knew that there were men in other areas just as capable of guerrilla fighting as those in the West Cork area if they were properly trained and commanded. ‘Any kind of war is a serious responsibility, but this was particularly true of that in which our small guerrilla force was pitted against the then mighty Britain.’[14]

  In spite of his disagreement, Barry respected Liam Lynch’s decision on the divisional training camp and continued on his way towards the Cork-Kerry border where the proposed camp was to be conducted. However, at the end of their day’s journey Tom and Liam Deasy were stopped by a dispatch from Lynch informing them that the area of the proposed camp was infested with the enemy and that it would be advisable to wait until the enemy withdrew. Next day they returned to West Cork.

  Back in West Cork Tom Barry provisionally disbanded the flying column and with his comrades continued to follow the bulletins in the daily papers. On 4 July it was announced that the Truce between the Irish and British forces had been agreed upon. Though the morale and confidence of the Third Cork Brigade was high Tom and his men welcomed the Truce. For those on the run and for the ordinary citizens it was a rest from the hardships and killing of war. He was also glad that the enemy had been forced to offer terms that were, in his opinion, a signal of victory for the IRA.

  Strickland obviously disillusioned wrote: ‘and so this is the end of 2-years toil. A year on we had a perfect “organisation” and had “them” beat – a short time more would have completed it thoroughly. All our labours and energy occupying have been thrown in the gutter’.[15]

  Weighing up the activities of the war, Tom said, ‘I made my brigade flying column fight aggressively, and I placed it in many difficult and dangerous situations, but those were risks well calculated by me. On the other hand, I never had any hesitation in avoiding battle with the British and retiring the column if we had not a reasonable hope of victory.’ In his opinion military men throughout the world judge the success of a battle by the number of casualties inflicted on the enemy ‘and West Cork had done fairly well in this respect’. In the precarious situation of guerrilla warfare, however, Tom also judged results on how few men were lost in action in achieving victory. He considered his men as part of his family and hated to lose any, so he felt happy at the end of this period because, he said, ‘The flying column under my command lost only seven with seven or eight wounded in all its many actions.’ British acknowledged casualties during the same period were over 100 dead and 93 wounded.[16]

  Fifty years later as he looked back on those days he was convinced that if the British government had felt that they could out-fight the IRA, then they would have further increased their strength in Ireland as they had in past history.

  ‘I am one of those who believe’ that the Volunteers were never ‘fully stretched from 1919–1921. Had the British succeeded in bringing in another 70,000 troops, the real test of the people and of the IRA could have begun.’[17]Barry and different IRA men entered ‘Bandon which was a garrison town between 40 and 50 times al-together, we tried to bring them out, especially over the last three to four months, but they didn’t come out.’[18]

  He never doubted that the column could continue harassing during the summer months and would survive the British summer offensive. Neither did he under-rate the potential of the immensely increased forces with which they were threatened and which would undoubtedly push against them if the negotiations did not succeed. Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson was prepared to pour ‘every available man’ into Ireland.[19] Montgomery believed ‘that Lloyd George was really right in what he did; if we had gone on we could probably have squashed the rebellion as a temporary measure, but it would have broken out again like an ulcer the moment we had removed the troops; I think the rebels would have refused battle, and hidden away their arms, etc., until we had gone’.[20]

  If the British government came to recognise the IRA, which was a startling upheaval of British policy, it was, according to Barry, ‘due only to the British recognition that they had not defeated and could not reasonably hope to defeat in the measurable future, the armed forces of the Irish nation.’[21]

  In the daily papers Tom Barry and the officers read of Lloyd George’s invitation to President de Valera and such colleagues as he might select to come to London to explore the possibility of a settlement. Negotiations regarding a Truce had begun. During this process Lloyd George requested information about Lord Bandon. On Tuesday 6 July, Mick Collins, Diarmuid Hegarty and Gearóid O’Sullivan sent for the Cumann na mBan director of organisation, Leslie Price. They ‘instructed’ her to visit Tom Barry in West Cork to obtain ‘full details of the health and condition of the Earl of Bandon … a very highly placed member of the British House of Lords’. De Valera was ‘to discuss terms of the Truce with Lord Midleton’ on Friday 8 July. ‘Midleton had stated that he would not discuss terms until he knew that Bandon was safe and sound. Midleton and Bandon were cousins.’

  Leslie left Dublin on the first train on Wednesday morning 7 July; she had to be back by mid-day Friday. Having arrived at the train station in Cork she set out on a borrowed bicycle for Dunmanway. Having cycled thirty miles, she met Paddy Walsh at Coppeen. He drove her in a pony trap to Caheragh and then to Skibbereen. Here they got a fresh pony and drove to Schull, only to be told that Tom Barry and the men had gone to Kealkil, outside Bantry. At Kealkil they were told Tom was back in Caheragh where they had left. It was after midnight on Thursday night when Leslie located Tom in a field, asleep in a bunker. She got ‘a withering look’ from him. ‘Tell Dublin headquarters to come down and see how my men are!’ Then he softened: ‘Lord Bandon is getting better dinners than the boys!’ He had been with him the night before, and ‘had seen the old man playing cards with his guards and urging them not to talk or laugh too loudly in case the British forces would come and attack them’. Tom assured her that he was being properly treated, and in a whisper expressed the hope that his plan would be fruitful. Having obtained the information and assurances, Leslie, with a change of ponies again, set out for Cork to catch the first train. She was back to meet De Valera in Dublin by 11.30 a.m. Friday. ‘Exhausted! I slept for twelve hours’, she wrote.[22]

  According to Percival, in kidnapping Lord Bandon, the IRA’s ‘object [was] to conclude a Truce’. Percival wrote that ‘a well-known lady, who had become an ardent Sinn Féiner, came down to Castle Bernard and said to Lady Bandon, “I have been sent down by our people to warn you that, unless the government conclude a Truce, Lord Bandon will be killed.” The reply [Lady Bandon’s] was “If that is all you have to say, you had better go home.” It would have been impossible to carry out any operations’, Percival wrote, ‘without having a reasonably good intelligence service’.[23] Barry would smile had he known of Percival’s intelligence service on this occasion!

  The justices were released when the peace talks made it obvious that a Truce was imminent. However, Lord Bandon was held, being moved periodically to different houses to avoid a British swoop.

  Lord Bandon’s deputy lieutenant, R. Bence Jones of Clonakilty escaped being kidnapped – as he was absent from home, meeting General Strickland. Some days later Bill Daly and other captured IRA men were informed that their death sentence would be postponed.[24]

  Could the IRA have carried on if there had been no Truce? ‘No participant can speak with accuracy on the overall position of the IRA throughout Ireland on that date ... My own views are based only on the intimate knowledge of one area, a general association with several others and what fellow officers
told me afterwards of their brigades.

  ‘The IRA in July 1921 were stronger in number – in spite of several thousands arrested – than they were in July 1920. In addition there were ten times more experienced, tough fighters.’[25]

  Tom Barry had always maintained, according to Denis O’Callaghan, that ‘one Volunteer was worth 100 paid soldiers, and this certainly has been proved. He also proved that the IRA could destroy the British civilian intelligence machinery.’ A drop in the number of IRA casualties occurred as spying and informing became dangerous. ‘Our army was a war army. It was made up of all types, all kinds, all classes. I can say without any fear of contradiction with 100 of these West Cork men, half armed with neither rations, supplies, telephone equipment, or any kind of decent accommodation, if I was offered 1,000 of the British army of that period in Ireland, with all the advantages, with all their barracks to retire into, by choice, I’d take the 100 of West Cork men, especially men who believed in what they were doing.’[26]

  Barry admitted that in a defensive action against British artillery, planes, armoured-cars and fire-power, the IRA would not have stood a chance. However, in the event of a troop build-up, he said, ‘Every wanted man in his area would be gathered into a flying column which would be through the blockade lines before the enemy had got set to commence their sweeps. Once outside the perimeter, the commander would have a choice of moving into a lightly held area or watching for a chance to harass the British from their rear.’[27]

  The harassment could be continued for years, but by then the cost in lives and energy would have been great. However, according to Barry the cost would not have been on the Irish side alone and with hindsight he asked, ‘Would the losses have been any greater than they were for the Irish who suffered two years of a bitter Civil War?’ He was convinced that if the leaders had foreseen the consequences of the Truce, none of them would have agreed to it, certainly not on the British terms of negotiations.

  At the time though, Barry was acutely aware of what a further build-up of British troops in his area during the summer of 1921 could mean. Michael Collins was in constant touch with the brigade leaders in all areas and also with outside sources regarding the securing of arms and ammunition, and so had a complete picture of the over-all situation. Florrie O’Donoghue, IO, says that ‘for 9 months every day practically before the end of Tan War, Collins and I had communication’. There was ‘closer contacts between brigades for communication was [part] of intelligence’. O’Donoghue had ‘a distinct view that closer co-operation between places in the south was necessary’. He had found many holes in the British intelligence system and their use of ‘Loyalists’ informers. ‘The British really thought they could organise an intelligence system. They had not learned their difficulties or they certainly did not know their own inherent weakness’.[28]

  Though national resistance against British rule and administration was general, ‘GHQ was in no position to control the fighting in the different brigade areas ... Each unit fought its own battles, won its own victories or stood up to its own defeats’. Consequently, ‘the British High Command quite logically concentrated on wiping out the fighting men of the active districts’.[29]

  The invitation by the British prime minister to the Irish leaders to attend a conference and to list the terms of the Truce were the best indication to Barry as to the success of guerrilla warfare. ‘The only language they [the British] listened to or could understand was that of the rifle, the revolver, the bomb and the crackling of the flames which cost them so dearly in blood and treasure.’[30]

  ‘The general election of 1918 had given the people an opportunity, under an election that was held under the British authority at the time, to declare their wish about the men of 1916, and the declaration of the Republic. The people opted for a Republic,’ Barry said. ‘But the British had no respect for the people at the polls even though they boasted about democracy.’ Professor John A. Murphy spoke of ‘Barry and his West Cork column’s contribution’ which ‘helped bring about a state of affairs where the British were anxious to make a truce. In 1919 and 1920 all the British wanted was to give a very limited form of Home Rule. If, in the summer of 1921 they were anxious to offer Dominion status, there was an enormous difference.’

  By July 1921 the Government of Ireland Act of December 1920 imposed a six county border. The May 1921 six county elections led to a parliament for the area in June. Professor John A. Murphy put it into a framework: ‘The War of Independence took place within the mandate’ of the 1918 victory within ‘the Dáil which spoke for Nationalist Ireland. The physical struggle was, as it were, mandated by that parliament … Crossbarry, Kilmichael and so on must be fitted into the pattern.’[31]

  Now a time had arrived when the fighting could stop. The British parliament was ready to negotiate. Since he became column commander shortly after joining the IRA Tom Barry had had moments of great hope and of great glory, moments of joy, of sorrow, of hate, of aggression, of deep sadness and a hundred thousand other moments as he tried to steer his men towards success. During all this time he doesn’t appear to have entertained any thoughts of despair – for him the sun would eventually come out and shine. And the spirit of the people in spite of their sorrow had a buoyancy which could not be quelled.

  As an example of why he thought British aggression had failed, he told of a touching memory when one day in February he left the column to visit the parents of Lieut Patrick Crowley of Kilbrittain after he had been killed by the Essex Regiment.

  With another officer Tom came out through the woods. Mrs Crowley, a frail, ageing woman dressed in black, was sitting on a stool in the yard gazing at the ruins of their burned-out-home. Her husband, a grey-bearded, thin man, was moving some rubble to strengthen a hen house which alone escaped the orgy of destruction. Towards the end of their days, their son Paddy was killed the previous week; Denis lay badly hurt in a British jail after a merciless beating by his captors; Con was also in prison under the name of Paddy Murphy with a shadow of death hanging over him should his identity be discovered. The fourth remaining son Mick had been seriously wounded early in the struggle, and his chance of survival was not great. Their two daughters, in Cumann na mBan, Ciss and Bridie were away on IRA business and would not be back until late that night. ‘The sorrows and sufferings of this ageing couple must have weighed heavily upon them, but there was no sign of weakness or complaining as they listened to our words of sympathy at the death of their son. British money could not buy them, nor could British guile and duplicity wean from them their support of the Irish Republican army. People with spirit like this were as truly soldiers of the resistance movement as any Volunteer of the flying column.’

  Tom had a high regard for his men and though there were dissensions in other brigade areas he was ‘happy to record that in the West Cork Brigade no such bickerings or dissensions ever existed. The brigade staff set an example of good comradeship that could not be surpassed. We were a happy family, bound together by close ties.’ All that mattered to them was ‘the pursuit of the movement for freedom.’[32]

  Peter Hart wrote that men in Tom Barry’s Column’contained only those who were loyal to him personally, who went anti-Treaty “to a man”, stuck with him afterwards … and who agreed with his version of history.’ He cites Barry’s comment regarding Paddy O’Brien’s Kilmichael ambush account in the Deasy book. Hart wrote that men ‘who were not part of this group, like Paddy O’Brien, were not part of the column, according to Barry himself’.[33]Other accounts show that Barry, O’Brien and flying column men, were at the period under review, comrades in arms, ‘fighting for the one objective’. (Later, men such as Seán Hales, John L. O’Sullivan, some Kilmichael and other flying column men became pro-Treaty).[34]

  Flor Begley, told Ernie O’Malley that ‘Tom Barry was a hard man, very strict but very good to his column men, and they loved him. “Did you have a good billet?” he would say to them next day, “and how were you fed?” And if they had not been,
he would do his best for them.’[35]

  ‘It has to be remembered,’ Comdt Christy O’Sullivan told Irish army officers, that Tom Barry trained several different columns over a period. The men were changed from time to time, but the commander was never changed which shows that the brigade had the utmost confidence in him.’ Comdt O’Sullivan met many men who had ‘participated in engagements’ under ‘General Tom Barry’ and ‘one thing all agree, is the sheer confidence which they had in their column commander at all times, even in the worst of positions.’ Whenever he was absent ‘there was always a feeling of tension and uncertainty’, when he was present they were ‘relaxed and confident’.[36]

  Barry himself was alert, always. Being a keen bridge card player, and like Liam Lynch, a good draughts player, Barry constantly tried to anticipate the moves of his opponents. ‘A good leader is one who attempts something that is possible, not what is impossible,’ he pointed out almost fifty years later. He had his men prepared for any eventuality, to think ahead, to react quickly, ready to vault over a ditch or wall as they marched. To get to brigade meetings and return quickly to his column he travelled on horseback. He had a horse that would jump ditches, walls, everything – ‘a winner of the Ballsbridge show owned by a great-great nephew of Daniel O’Connell.’[37]

  Col M. J. Costello summed up the success of Barry’s flying column with ‘good leadership’. And he quotes Napoleon: ‘In war, it is not men who count, it is the man’.

  With particular reference to Crossbarry, Col Costello wrote, ‘If the men of Crossbarry had not been led with skill and determination, there would have been no fight to write about. They would simply have been mopped up … If even one step had been neglected, if the leader had been content, as so many of us are prone to be, with something less than absolute thoroughness and attention to every detail in providing for the security of his command,’ it would have been disastrous. Furthermore, ‘in the superior morale qualities of Barry’s column, is to be found another reason for the result of the action and an object lesson in the truth and importance of Napoleon’s remark: “the morale is to the physical as three is to one”.’ Barry’s success Col Costello said was the men’s ‘confidence in their commander, a confidence learned in other fights, and an intense patriotism were foundations of this high morale and discipline.’[38]The Third West Cork Brigade Flying Column carried the name of their commander and became known as ‘Barry’s Flying Column’. The ballad maker penned the song: