Tom Barry

by Meda Ryan

  He waited for some time. Strickland’s message stated that he did not recognise the IRA, nor would he do so. But, Barry was adamant, he would only deal with him in his capacity as an IRA officer, and if Strickland was unwilling to deal with him as an IRA officer, he would leave immediately. He was determined he wouldn’t be side-tracked on this issue. When asked if he would speak with Higginson, Barry adopted the same attitude and received a similar response. He returned to his office.

  As other officers in the martial law area had similar problems with Higginson and enemy police, Barry convened a meeting of all liaison officers in Mallow. He told them that they should deal with the enemy only as IRA officers. He ‘instructed them’ to cease all co-operation with the enemy until he heard from GHQ because the ‘enemy police were continually breaking the truce’. Fully armed, the police paraded up and down in front of his office (HQ Cork) in Turner’s Hotel and they seized two of his motor-cars. Barry sent his complaints on the IRA official notepaper, but the enemy ‘refused to deal with any complaint registered on that notepaper’. Barry then sent his complaints to Comdt Duggan, chief liaison officer, Dublin Castle who referred him to Divisional Commissioner Dunlop, RIC. Dunlop asked that the breach of ‘the truce terms by the police’ should be referred to him.

  ‘Not until two IRA cars are returned’, Barry said.

  Dunlop said one was a stolen car and he would ‘not recommend its return; however if a permit was procured for the other, it would be given back’.

  ‘I’ve driven cars without permits and will continue to do so’. Barry was emphatic.

  Dunlop said he would await instructions from Dublin. By mid August the matter remained unchanged.[3]

  ‘I rang Mick [Collins] after. He was quite silent about it.’ On a visit to Cork and to his home place, he met Barry. ‘There’s trouble over that!’ he said, but told him not to worry. A few days later Barry got a message to report to Dublin to meet General Macready.

  In Vaughan’s Hotel he slept in the bed Collins used, had a bath and shave in the morning and got into his best suit. He was ‘having a smoke’ after breakfast when Collins came in with Ned Duggan, chief liaison officer, dressed ‘in a black coat, waxed moustache, black hat, striped pants and spats.’ Barry didn’t take to his ‘aping of the British’. He told Collins he wasn’t the best man to meet Macready; however he relented after some persuasion. The two went off in a ‘posh car’.

  On being escorted into the room Macready stood up, shook hands with Duggan, whom he had met previously, and ignored Barry. Then he stated, ‘Well Mr Duggan this black-guardism by you Irish chaps, it’ll have to stop – assaulting troops …’ As he continued with the ‘diatribe’ Duggan replied, ‘Yes, General, it will be done.’ The more he said ‘yes general’, the more Barry began to fume. Then Macready spoke of an incident in Tipperary where he said some British soldiers had been beaten up. Barry was aware of the incident and knew that the soldiers were drunk and provocative. ‘Our own fellows weren’t always blameless … sometimes we had to take action we’d fire them out of the IRA, tell them to get out of the country, tell them they were a disgrace … But I’d say four out of five cases were started by the British … Anyway Duggan continued with, “Yes, General!” – Christ, I was starting to boil.’

  After about 15 minutes, Macready turned, ‘Now, Barry, you’ve heard what’s to be done’.

  Barry laughed and said, ‘I’m listening, Macready! And I’m listening to Mr “Yes General, it will be done” Duggan. Well you know Macready and Duggan it won’t be done! None of these things will take place and I’ll see that they won’t, even if we make bits of the truce. From your behaviour here, the sooner we get to grips again and fight it out the better!’

  He was furious that ‘troops of the elected government’ were being referred to ‘as if we were the army of occupation’. As Barry watched Macready turn ‘blue’ he thought of a speech Lord French, who ‘despised’ Macready, made on leaving Ireland. He went to the door, turned and said, ‘After all your crude and insulting behaviour, Macready, I can well understand what Lord French meant when he said at his farewell dinner, when the wine was flowing, that the one big regret he had was leaving behind his decent staff to a flat-footed bastard of a London policeman.’

  Barry told the driver to take him back to Collins. He told Mick the story – ‘every bit’ including his repetition of what Lord French had said.

  ‘You didn’t!’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Where’s Duggan?’

  ‘I don’t know. I hope to Christ he’s gone into the bloody Liffey! I left him behind with Macready.’[4]

  Among the terms of the Truce were, ‘No provocative display of forces, armed or unarmed ... To discountenance and prevent any action likely to cause disturbance of the peace which might necessitate military interference.’ Therefore, on one occasion Tom was annoyed when he found a group of IRA men openly drilling. His honesty would not allow him deviate from the rules. The men maintained that it was merely a practice – judging by the reports in the newspapers, and the manner in which negotiations were progressing between London and Dublin delegates, they might have to take up arms again against the British. Never for a moment did they envisage a call to arms against their own people.

  Tom Barry was impatient. He was torn. Progression towards normalisation and stability was too slow. He threatened to resign. Mulcahy did not take too kindly to this, but the ill discipline of the IRA and that of the enemy disturbed him more. ‘We have either truce or war, and whoever by any want of discipline reopens the war prematurely, will have to be held accountable for it,’ Tom wrote.[5]

  Over in London one night on the way home after a fiery session with the British delegation, Michael Collins broke his stride, turned to Emmet Dalton and said, ‘I wish I had Tom Barry here. We need a man like him to face Lloyd George!’[6] On Collins’ next visit to Dublin he sent word to Barry to go to London. In Hans Place, Collins questioned him ‘about strengths and about reasons why, if the British wanted’ more garrisons that they couldn’t get them. ‘They had several garrisons here [in Ireland] already and they wanted more’. Collins and the negotiators wanted to have Barry’s opinion on various military aspects, and ‘when these things would come up in Hans Place at night’ Barry would give his viewpoint.[7] ‘Collins valued Barry’s opinion. He had great respect for that man. He said one night in Hans Place that we wouldn’t be here at all [negotiating] only for Tom Barry’, Emmet Dalton recalled. ‘He wished he had him at the negotiating table, and told him so, too. There’s no doubt but Barry wouldn’t have taken any of Lloyd George’s bluff. Whether his forceful approach would have worked it’s hard to know.’[8]

  One day Tom set out for Downing Street where he was to have a word with Mick prior to a negotiating session. He wore a long trench coat. It was a very wild day and his coat blew up. Photographers hovered around. In taking a picture of Mick Collins they got a view of Barry from the back with ‘his two skits’ (guns) exposed. Next day a photo with the caption, ‘Gunmen in Downing Street!’ landed on Lloyd George’s desk. A fuming Lloyd George accosted Collins, ‘Is this true?’

  Collins opened his coat. ‘If you want to know I’m armed myself!’[9]

  While in Britain, Barry took the opportunity of visiting his friend Tom Hales, who was still in Pentonville Jail. On 15 November, Jenny (Jennie) Wyse Power in a letter to Sighle Humphreys, wrote that ‘Leslie tells us that in two months time her new companion [Tom Barry] expects the only work he is good at, to be going again’.[10] In a further letter on 21 November Jenny wrote, ‘I am certain things are critical. House [Michael Collins] told Sara [Jenny Wyse Power] that he expected things going again any day now … Leslie has definitely gone and was very lonely in the finish. It is difficult to explain why her spouse’s [Tom Barry] work has changed; but I will try find out all.’ She believed he disliked being liaison officer, ‘his power and capabilities lay one way only and you understand what that way was. This got tangled up all over Muns
ter where he was the chief … a crux came when it became necessary to take orders from civil as well as military people’.[11]

  Tom Barry, Liam Lynch, Liam Deasy and other officers in the Southern Division, who welcomed a Truce, only wanted a short one. A short Truce followed by a renewal of the armed conflict when talks were not proving meaningful, would, they felt, with hindsight, have forced the British government into a more meaningful Treaty.[12] In any case the Truce period was too long, because the Irish people were uncertain and the IRA had not really put their guns away. ‘The Truce lasted for a year and it ended in Civil War. It was a heartbreaking period for those who had built up the IRA. When the first flush of over-hopeful expectation had passed, serious problems emerged, more difficult to deal with than any which the leaders had previously encountered. ‘A nation’s destiny had passed for the moment from the hands of the soldiers into the field of diplomacy and the army was in large part a helpless spectator of a course of events which contained all the elements of disaster.’[13]

  On the night of 6 December Articles of Agreement for the Treaty signed by a delegation in London created the circumstances for those guns to be used later by friend against friend and brother against brother.

  When the Treaty was signed the first reaction of the Irish people was one of rejoicing. Barry said it took him 24 hours to understand it. ‘Once I absorbed it, I knew it wasn’t freedom – so did the people who signed, let’s be fair to them! There was the continuation of partition, there was the oath of allegiance, the governor general and there were the bases. I’m not opening an attack on those who signed …’[14]

  When Barry analysed it, he found that ‘we would continue to be a subject race, subject to an oath of allegiance’. With ‘the press of the country’ and ‘supporters of the establishment backing it’ he decided something should be done, so he ‘drafted half a page notice pointing out the disadvantages of the Treaty’, gave it to the Cork Examiner, but they refused ‘to take’ it. ‘I visited them a few hours later with a half a dozen armed men, and I said, “Publish this or you can pay for it!”’ Though he accepted it wasn’t right, he maintained that ‘somebody had to let these facts be known.’[15]

  When the Dáil reconvened on 3 January 1922, the Treaty debate continued; on 7 January the Treaty was accepted by 64 votes to 57. De Valera resigned as president of the Dáil and Arthur Griffith was elected in his place. De Valera left the house in protest followed by his supporters.

  So now in Ireland there were two groups – pro-Treaty and anti-Treaty. News travelled quickly and immediately people began to take sides. Tom and his companions met and debated long and hard the terms of the Treaty and the reasons for De Valera’s opposition to it. Tom felt that they had fought too hard to relinquish and accept less than a 32-county Republic or pay allegiance to the British crown. He agreed with Liam Lynch who explained, ‘my attitude is now as always to fight on for the recognition of the Republic.’[16] Tom won the confidence of the majority of his men who decided to stick together. ‘From the day on which Dáil Éireann took its decision for acceptance of the Treaty, the wedge of division was driven into the ranks of the IRA,’ Tom wrote. ‘Liam Lynch devoted all his energies to an effort directed towards keeping the army united in loyalty to its original allegiance. So far as his division was concerned he was largely successful, but he realised that unless the whole army could evolve a policy of agreement on fundamental principles where the political leaders had failed, civil war was inevitable.’[17]

  The Treaty was already signed when Tom Hales was released from Pentonville Jail, and because of Michael Collins’ close connection with the Hales family Collins expected Tom would back the Treaty. His brother, Seán, agreed with Collins’ point of view and was later a member of the Free State Dáil. When Tom Hales took the anti-Treaty side, Collins said, ‘More than any man, I would have valued his support’.[18]

  Since the handing over of Dublin Castle to the Provisional Government in Dublin, local IRA units around the country had been taking over British evacuated positions. Ammunition, which the Republicans would use at a future date, was also collected.

  Throughout the country there were pro-Treaty and anti-Treaty divisions of opinion. In places like Limerick there were open clashes of opinion. The Volunteer army was split, but very often the attitude of a group was determined by the decision of its commanding officer. There are those in West Cork who maintain that if Tom Barry had taken a different course, it is possible that history would have been different. Having known both De Valera and Michael Collins, he believed in the sincerity of both, so when he saw another war looming, he tried to keep the people of West Cork together.

  He attended the Mansion House convention on 26 March 1922, which was prohibited by the Dáil, and was only attended by anti-Treaty men. They appointed an executive, which was to be the army’s supreme authority. Barry was one of five men from the executive elected to the army council on 28 March.[19]

  Afterwards Tom went to Cork, got some men together and went to Limerick where trouble was brewing. William Street barracks, evacuated by the Auxiliaries, was occupied by anti-Treatyites who also occupied hotels and a wing of the mental hospital. Barry and members of the army council ‘agreed to support the views of the Second Southern Division’. Barry wanted ‘an issue to be made’ of ‘the occupation’ of Limerick ‘as a most strategic point’. Travelling with Rory O’Connor he met Ernie O’Malley, Tipperary officers, and Tom Hales with his West Cork Brigade. The collective anti-Treaty officers nominated Barry ‘to command the different Divisional Units’. The situation was explosive as pro-Treatyites occupied the castle and a number of other evacuated British posts.Already the anti-Treatyites had begun to organise into a separate force, repudiating its nominal allegiance to the Dáil. At Mulcahy’s suggestion, Liam Lynch and Oscar Traynor travelled from Dublin to Limerick to help avert a clash. Traynor found Michael Brennan, pro-Treatyite, prepared ‘to fight and he was puffed out in his uniform like a peacock’. On the other side the mediators ‘had an awful job with Barry’. Eventually they succeeded in an agreement as the men ‘marched off singing and carrying their guns. We had to try and impress on Barry that there would be fighting at some time,’ Traynor wrote.[20] The Limerick agreement was considered ‘a climbdown by the Provisional Government’.[21]

  When the convention met again on 9 April 1922, feeling was strong against the Treatyites. Therefore, on the night of 13 April, Rory O’Connor, Tom Barry, Liam Lynch, Ernie O’Malley, Seán Moylan, Seán MacBride and others set up headquarters in the Four Courts.

  During this period Tom and Leslie were spending most of their time in Dublin, staying in Leslie’s original home with the Price family. Leslie was involved with the White Cross – an American charitable relief organisation that helped alleviate hardships for families, and disbursed $5,000,000,000 dollars that the American Relief organisation had collected. They arranged the distribution of boatloads of clothes and food shipped from America. [22]

  Notes

  [1]Leslie’s story, Leslie Price de Barra, Sighle Humphreys Papers, P106/1412 (1), UCDA.

  [2]John Browne to author 16/10/2002.

  [3]An tÓglách, 19 August, 1921;Tom Barry, author interview; Tom Barry, n.d. RTÉ Sound Archives; Tom Barry, to Griffith and O’Grady, Curious Journey, pp. 240, 241.

  [4]Tom Barry, Documentary, n.d. not transmitted, RTÉ Sound Archives; Tom Barry to Griffith and O’Grady, Curious Journey, pp. 243, 244.

  [5]Tom Barry to C/S, 19 October 1921 & C/S to O/C, S.D. 27 Oct 1921, MP, P7A/26 also C/S to Collins 21 October 1921, P7A/72, MP, UCDA.

  [6]Emmet Dalton, author interview 4/4/1974. Collins was one of the five-man delegation negotiating a settlement with the British government.

  [7]Tom Barry to Nollaig Ó Gadhra, 1969, RTÉ Sound Archives.

  [8]Emmet Dalton, author interview 4/4/1974.

  [9]John Browne, to author 22/10/2002; see Ryan, Michael Collins and the Women, p. 114, Collins told Sir John Lavery, ‘There’s a gun in th
e pocket!’ when asked to remove his coat.

  [10]Jenny W. Power to Sighle H., Sighle Humphreys Papers, 15/11/1921, P106/ 728, UCDA. Referes to as Jenny in Sighle Humphreys Papers and Jennie in Máire O’Neill’s biography.

  [11]Ibid., Sighle Humphreys Papers, 21/11/1921, P106/732, UCDA.

  [12]Ryan, The Real Chief, p. 76.

  [13]Tom Barry, unpublished document, TB private papers.

  [14]Tom Barry to Nollaig Ó Gadhra, 1969, RTÉ Sound Archives; In houses countrywide IRA members assembled. In Daniel McSweeney’s (son Michael McSweeney) in Ballyvourney, Seán Hegarty Cork No. 1 Brigade (Tom Barry’s friend), with 13 others gathered on that day, to decide on the course of action they would take because of the signing of the Treaty. Donal McSweeney to author, 20/4/ 2003.

  [15]Tom Barry to Griffith and O’Grady, Curious Journey, p. 270. Documentary, n.d. not transmitted, RTÉ Sound Archives.

  [16]Liam Lynch to his brother, Fr Tom 12/12/1921, in Meda Ryan, The Real Chief, p. 87.

  [17]Tom Barry, unpublished document, TB private papers.

  [18]Meda Ryan, The Day Michael Collins was Shot, p. 31.

  [19]M. Twomey Papers, P69/179 (140), UCDA army council: Liam Lynch, Liam Mellows, Seán Moylan, Rory O’Connor, Tom Barry; Tom Barry Report, Military Service Registration Board, Dept of Defence.

  [20]Erskine Childers Diary, 11 March 1922, Childers Papers, Trinity College Archives Department; Oscar Traynor, O’Malley Papers, P17B/95, UCDA.

  [21]Michael Hopkinson, Green Against Green, pp. 64, 65.