Tom Barry

by Meda Ryan

  He also developed a habit of trying to insist on doing everything the way he wanted it done. ‘By God, he had aggression; even in his later life he was overflowing with it. He must have been some man to meet at the wrong side of a gun during those early days’, was how one observer described him.

  He attended the meetings in Cork for the organisation of a commemoration ceremony in Cobh, and everything was arranged for two o’clock. However, Barry arrived at one o’clock on the Sunday with a number of men, went to the grave and carried out the ceremony. The local men assembled at two o’clock with all other Old IRA men; when they marched to the island they discovered that a ceremony with the laying of a wreath had already been performed. ‘It was disappointing,’ said an IRA veteran.[36]

  Barry had said, when he spoke at the dedication of the monuments at Kilmichael and Crossbarry, that he would not speak again on a public platform (although he later did), but each year out of courtesy the commemoration committee would write and invite all survivors. Invariably Barry would write back, thanking them and stating that he did not attend these events any more and enclosing a subscription for the wreath.

  In 1979 the committee decided that, as his wife was not well, they would not trouble him by writing because he would have to write back with the usual explanation. When the group, assembled for the anniversary commemoration at Kilmichael, they found a wreath had already been placed. Barry with a few friends had come down the previous day, Saturday, and placed a wreath ‘just because he wasn’t asked, and we had been asking him over the past years and he wouldn’t come!’[37]

  Usually when he went to West Cork to attend funerals and meet old friends he would have an enjoyable day. Sometimes, though, he might take a drop ‘over and above’ and could be a little troublesome, but usually he only allowed himself to become merry. Though without the gift of a singing voice, he would, after a few drinks, start:

  Down by the Glenside I met an old woman . . .

  I listened a while to the song she was singing,

  Glory oh, Glory oh, to the Bold Fenian men.

  And he would finish in a raised voice:

  Sure I went on my way thanking God that I met her…

  We may have good men today, but we’ll never have better,

  Glory oh, Glory oh, to the Bold Fenian men.[38]

  While in West Cork usually he’d call into Kathy Hayes’ pub if in the Rosscarbery area, and with former comrades talk about old times and historical events, including actions and ambushes.

  One night, returning with a friend from Rosscarbery, some argument arose between them; Barry, who could be troublesome when he had drink taken, said, ‘Get out and I’ll fight you!’

  The driver stopped. Barry got out and began to peel off his coat and the car drove off.

  ‘I knew all these roads,’ he said. ‘I walked every one of them.’ He was out near Coppeen and went to someone’s house and asked to be driven back to Cork.

  He was taken to the Grocer’s club where he knew his companion would be. Barry went in and tapped his companion on the shoulder. When he stood up, Barry drew back his fist, floored him, and walked out. Barry, still fit and dapper, was over seventy years old at the time.

  In a pub one night a group was chatting and a slight argument arose; one of the company said to Barry, ‘What would you know about it anyway, you’re only a Kerry man!

  ‘Stand up, a Kerryman I’m not!’ said Barry raising his fist and hitting his companion full force.

  Another night he was coming out of a pub in Cork with a companion from the First World War and the two had an argument. ‘As one British soldier to another ... his comrade began. Barry stood for a moment, drew his fist on the plate glass window and smashed it.

  Those who knew him well accepted his faults and spoke of him as a true and dear friend.[39]

  In the 1970s he attended a big rally in Cork where he spoke on the Price sisters who were on hunger strike in Britain. In 1980 at Crossbarry, before allowing the IRA veterans to disperse, he concluded, ‘and in addition today, I don’t want you to fall out until the same prayers are said for the men who are being crucified in H-Block, Long Kesh. I want you to say the prayers for them, too, to show our unity with these men, many of whom are completely innocent and are rail-roaded by the same British that killed these men whom we are commemorating.’[40]

  Despite all his aggression, he maintained courtesy when the occasion called for it. When Sighle Humphreys sent him a document for approval and apologised for inconvenience, he wrote, ‘Don’t worry about tormenting me … I like you too much for that’. Unable to go to a meeting in Dublin as Leslie was ill, he told Sighle, ‘I hate to refuse you anything Sighle, but now being in my eightieth year I dislike even seeing my name in print. When I was young and active in the Republican movement, I always felt that anyone over fifty years of age should have stepped down and leave it to the younger people. I have not changed my mind since.’ He told her to tell the others that he was unable to attend the meeting ‘for domestic and personal reasons.’

  ‘All attempts in the past – and they have been legion – to the course of action’ for a United Ireland ‘have failed. I cannot see any hope either for this one,’ he wrote. ‘I have my own opinion as to how this struggle will end and my own views as to the strategy and tactics being adopted by Republicans, but I will not write them down. However I wish you well in your efforts …’[41]

  When ‘the troubles’ were at their height in the north of Ireland and prisoners went on hunger-strike to seek political status, Sighle Humphreys sent a communication to Barry asking that his name be added to a support group. ‘A very long – 25 minutes phone call’ to Tom elicited a negative response, Sighle wrote. ‘He said that the men who were carrying out the recent killing – especially that last shooting of [there is a blank] could not be called IRA they were just independent groups working on their own. He said that he had recently been invited to Derry and Belfast but had refused both invitations. Since the hunger-strike began he had been approached to use his influence in certain quarters but had also refused and told whoever had approached him that he should realise that the organisation was losing support from all quarters and that they had only themselves to blame.’[42]

  A severe blow came to Leslie in the mid 1970s. When the coalition government was in power she was telephoned and told, without ceremony, that she was not being re-appointed to the chairmanship of the Red Cross. Tom was hurt because neither of them ever became involved in party politics. Leslie had been decorated by ‘the German, Italian and Netherlands governments for her outstanding service to the Red Cross Society, and in 1978 received the international committee’s highest award, the Henri Dunant Medal.’[43]

  In the autumn of his life he and his wife Leslie would take long walks down the quays and all along the Mardyke, and would often sit on a bench beside the flowers and trees, pleasantly chatting to one another. Then one day fate intervened and divided the couple. On 20 August 1975 – following the announcement of the death of De Valera – Leslie, while on the telephone, collapsed with a stroke and was taken to St Finbarr’s Hospital. Though she was extremely low for some time, she gradually regained her senses but remained paralysed from the waist down.

  He was positively bitter ‘with God for being so cruel’‚ his friends recall. It took him some time to accept the fact that she would never completely recover.

  Each day found him visiting her, morning and evening, and as she grew a little better, her senses being restored somewhat, their meetings gave him more pleasure; the two would chat about old times, discussing past events. Christy Barrett, who often travelled by bus with him, recalls him reading passages from the newspaper to her.

  ‘You could set your watch at eleven o’ clock every morning as he passed the City Hall on his way to the hospital. And like a perfect gentlemen he would always raise his hat in greeting if there was a woman present.’[44]

  Mick McCarthy believes that his attention to his wife during the la
st years of his life ‘showed his humanity as a dedicated husband; visiting her twice and sometimes three times a day, often under adverse conditions, is a great credit to him. They were happy together.’[45]

  In a sad touching letter to his friend Sighle Humphreys he wrote:

  Well Sighle, I told a priest friend of ours that I had become a Roman Catholic Atheist. For the first 3½ months of her illness I went to daily Mass and Communion for her. But her pain and suffering increased and all the Mass cards and prayers of others did not seem to matter a damn. If God was the merciful and just God I thought he was in my youth and if he had any interest in us mortals, Leslie has seen none of it.

  Everybody dies and I would have accepted her death without bitterness if she had been spared all the pain and suffering of the past 9½ months. But why was she singled out when I know hundreds of ruffians, who broke every commandment and rule of decency, pass away peacefully in their sleep or after a few days illness. Leslie will never know I feel like this; so I go into Mass every Sunday.

  Your friend,

  Tom.[46]

  In another heart-rending letter, over a year later to Donncha Ó Dulaing he wrote:

  The Barrys have struck a very bad patch, hence delay in reply. Leslie Mary lies paralysed for almost two and half years in St Finbarr’s Hospital. During that period I also have had a spell in the cardiac unit … an operation … left me weak, I seem to be pulling back again. I visit Leslie Mary daily, by bus. and hope to return to twice daily visits. I’m not complaining, as this is life and to hell with death![47]

  Christy Barrett, his helper-friend of many years, remained in Barry’s flat, cooking the meals, cleaning, washing, and generally fulfilling the role of companion.

  At times Tom sat on a bench in the Mardyke, where often he had sat with Leslie Mary; or he would tend to the flowerbed that surrounded the bust of Michael Collins – his former comrade and later adversary in war.

  As the evening shadows were about to descend on Cork city he could often be seen sitting on a bench on the quay, alone, gazing across the River Lee with the spires of St Mary’s church beyond and the Shandon Bells in the distance.

  Notes

  [1]Cork Examiner, 10 August 1970.

  [2]Ibid.

  [3]Ibid.

  [4]Criostóir de Baróid, author interview 12/1/1981.

  [5]Raymond Smith interview with Tom Barry, Irish Independent, 8 December 1970.

  [6]Ibid.

  [7]Tom Barry, Irish Independent, 7 June 1971.

  [8]Ibid.

  [9]Cork Examiner, 12 July 1971; Tom Barry, home video, courtesy of Dave O’Sullivan.

  [10]Kieran Wyse, Cork County Library, to author 16/5/2000; Cork Examiner, 8/7/1971, 9/7/1971.

  [11]Ruairí Ó Brádraigh to author 10/3/2002 – he ‘recalled this speech again on his 100th birthday’.

  [12]Joe Cahill to author, 27/6/2003.

  [13]Dave O’Sullivan to author, 29/10/2002; Brendan O’Neill to author, 12/11/ 2002. Among the men on stage were, Joe Cahill, John Whelton, Paddy Lane, Daithí O’Connell, Mick McCarthy, Alfie Lane – and more activists from each decade.

  [14]Christy Barrett to author, 11/4/2002.

  [15]Raymond Smith, Irish Independent, 3/7/1980.

  [16]Tom to Sighle Humphreys, 12 December 1973, Sighle H. Papers, P106/837, UCDA.

  [17]Leslie – Tom to Sighle Humphreys, 30 June 1973, Sighle Humphreys Papers, UCDA.

  [18]Christy Barrett, author interview 11/4/2002; Maureen O’Sullivan to author 22/6/2002; Leslie Bean de Barra, author interview, 20/7/1975.

  [19]John E. Chisholm, 2 November 1972, Editor’s Note, Towards Ireland Free.

  [20]Tom Barry letter, dated 1/10/1973, to all national daily newspapers, also Barry, The Reality, pp. 5, 6; see Toureen by Con Crowley, Burgatia by Jack Corkery, Crossbarry by Tom Kelleher, Rosscarbery Barracks by Tim O’Donoghue, Kilmichael by Tom Barry – Rebel Cork’s Fighting Story; Pádraig Ó Maidín, in a review wondered why written accounts of ‘ambushes and actions’ by participants on each occasion, were not taken into account in the Deasy book, Cork Examiner, 22/1/ 1975.

  [21]Anvil Books Ltd., November 1974. Tom Barry’s Letter to editor is dated 1 October 1973 – sent to all Irish dailies and Southern Star, pub. 4/1/1975 in conjunction with extracts from his booklet.

  [22]Tom Barry, letters to editors of Irish newspapers, letter dated, l October 1973.

  [23]Barry, The Reality, pp. 9–18.

  [24]Ibid., pp. 28–38. Deasy, pp. 233–249.

  [25]Ibid., pp. 58, 59; review, Raymond, Southern Star, September 1973

  [26]Pádraig Ó Maidín, Cork Examiner, 2/1/1975.

  [27]Dick Cross, Irish Independent, 13/12/1974.

  [28]Pádraig Ó Maidín, Cork Examiner, 2/1/1975.

  [29]Nudge Callanan, author interview 14/1/1980; letter J. M. Feehan, 11/12/ 1974, Pádraig Ó Maidín Papers, Cork County Library; Cork Examiner, 11/12/1974.

  [30]Nudge Callanan, author interview 14/1/1980; John Fitzgerald, author interview 20/4/1975; Denis Lordan, author interview 18/3/1975; Paddy O’Brien, author interview 17/1/1976.

  [31]Barry, The Reality, p. 13.

  [32]Recording of lectures to Irish army officers, 1966, courtesy of Lieut Col Eamonn Moriarty.

  [33]Dan Nolan to Tom Barry 30/8/1974, TB private papers; editors note – The Reality.

  [34]Miah Deasy, Liam’s brother, to author 7/11/1980. Author’s conversation with members of the Deasy family, 9/11/1980.

  [35]Christy Barrett, author interview 11/4/2002. Christy always called Tom Barry ‘The General’.

  [36]Mick McCarthy, author interview 12/10/1980.

  [37]Dómhnall MacGiolla Phoil to author 11/3/1980.

  [38]Den Carey, author interview 11/1/1981.

  [39]Ibid.; Jerh Cronin, author interview 10/1/1981.

  [40]Brendan O’Neill, author interview 10/1/1981.

  [41]Tom to Sighle Humphreys 12/1/1976, P106/838, UCDA.

  [42]Sighle Humphreys Papers. Sighle has corrected some of her sentences in her notes. P106/1566 (6), UCDA. I am indebted to Brian Hanley, University of Dublin, Trinity College, for this reference.

  [43]Donncha Ó Dulaing, Voices of Ireland, p. 106.

  [44]Christy Barrett, author interview 11/4/2002; Nora and Michael O’Sullivan to author 29/5/ 1980.

  [45]Mick McCarthy, author interview 11/1/1981.

  [46]Tom to Sighle Humphreys, 12 June 1976, Sighle Humphreys Papers, P106/ 839, UCDA.

  [47]Tom Barry letter to Donncha Ó Dulaing, read on radio programme, 2/7/1980, RTÉ Sound Archives.

  27 – From Mardyke Bench to Final Curtain

  Against the background of what became known as ‘The Troubles’ in Northern Ireland, especially in the 1970s, Tom Barry in a frank interview elucidated his personal views:

  ‘Basically I’m a physical force man. If violent methods are used, you can only counter them with violence. What’s the use in turning the other bloody cheek? Yes I discovered that long ago. But, I would only agree with bombing military targets, and military targets only. The fight to get the British out of Ireland forever is the right of every Irish person, but the killing of non-military personnel in the northern part of our country is something I abhor. The IRA have every right to attack the occupying forces, but nobody, and I emphasise the word nobody has the right to bomb civilian targets. The lives of the ordinary citizens must be protected, and I have always made that quite clear.’

  It was a warm mid-April day in 1979. We sat on a bench in the Mardyke, Cork. Tom looked out over the mown lawn, past the shrubs towards the blue sky beyond. His words were measured, as always. He admitted he had gone to the north of Ireland during the early 1970s on the invitation of the IRA but said he found too many opposing forces of opinion on policy, and too many splinter groups, thus making difficult a united effort of tactics against British domination. Therefore he felt he couldn’t be of much help.

  He also admitted that many IRA leaders called on him from time to time, but he said he ‘told them to the
ir face’ he disagreed with any ‘ruthless bombing which sapped the lives of innocent people.’

  When the column occupied Lord Tom Kingston’s house before the Burgatia engagement he felt sorry, mainly for the man’s wife and family. ‘My family were gone to Liverpool; it was their decision. And when Lord Tom pleaded with me to let him go to England I consented. Mind you if it was proved that he had been responsible for getting even one of my men killed, I’d have shot him. He went off and didn’t trouble us again. I always believed in abiding by the code of war except when those Essex savages committed barbaric deeds, then I ordered that they be shot at sight.’

  He laughed when he thought of the soldiers in Skibbereen to whom he gave a good time, but anger rose when mention was made of the deaths of Galvin, Begley and O’Donoghue. ‘The marks on their bodies showed treatment conducted by savages who called themselves soldiers of the British king.’ Torture or ill-treatment was not war but savagery to him, and he referred again to incidents in the north. Torturing anybody, no matter whom, or killing civilians, was wrong. ‘I fell out with the IRA because of the bombing campaign of Birmingham, and I do not agree with using places like restaurants, bars or any other public buildings as a target, or such incidents as a means of gaining a United Ireland.’

  He went back over the pains taken in his guerrilla days to protect innocent civilians. Before the Toureen ambush he had ordered the Roberts family to be taken, under guard, to a neighbour’s house and kept there until after the ambush. At Crossbarry, before occupying Beasleys’ and Harolds’ farmhouses on the roadside near the area, he had ordered the occupants to be removed and held under guard at neighbours’ houses. The guard was necessary in case of informants. Drimoleague Barracks’ attack was a risky venture, as it meant removing several families who lived across the road from the quarters; this had to be done piece-meal for fear of detection.