Tom Barry (49 page)

With Frank Ryan, who returned to Dublin in May 1937, Barry organised a public meeting, though illegal because of the government anti-IRA sanction. ‘Historic Liberty Hall was the land mark.' Despite Barry's disagreement with Ryan on the Spanish issue, he backed his Republican spirit and ‘the protest against the government's message [of welcome] to King George'. Barry, Ryan and Tadhg Lynch marched with Cumann na mBan members. Scuffles broke out between the police and the organisers – ‘the fiercest since 1913'. The police baton-charged the crowded Parnell Square. Sighle Humphreys, Cumann na mBan, ‘walking directly behind the IRA', recalled ‘the savage way police batoned Tom Barry. I really thought he was finished. He showed the most extraordinary courage that night; he just walked on straight ahead into a solid mass of police with batons drawn'.
[26]
Barry's ‘skull was smashed by a rifle-butt' and he was brought to the crowded nearby flat where many of the blood-covered, baton-charged injured were brought. He does not remember what happened next. Later he ended up in a hospital bed with wounded and bandaged people all around him. ‘It was a miracle he survived'.
[27]

Meanwhile, Frank Ryan and Tadhg Lynch ‘delivered a short address'. Lynch's ‘coat and shirt were a mess of blood, but his voice, mind and body were vibrant with the passion of a great work well done.' The police charged again and Lynch, beaten unconscious, ended up in a hospital bed next to Barry.
[28]
When Barry woke up, he told Tadhg Lynch ‘who was not too bad, to slip out of the hospital and mobilise the Dublin Brigade for the following night with three armed sections.'
[29]

Next evening, the various organisations again mobilised their members. Barry slipped out of hospital. The banned meeting was to be held a second time. Paddy Rigney and Donal O'Donoghue spoke. ‘When Tom Barry, his head swathed in bandages', mounted the platform, a number of police moved in ‘but angry shouts and the pressure of determined men against them made them retreat'. Before a gathering of over 5,000 extending through Cathal Brugha Street, and across O'Connell Street, the applause and cheering was so great that ‘for several minutes' he was unable to speak. There were shouts of, ‘Up Kilmichael! Up the Republic!'
[30]

‘Tonight' s meeting is a repeat one,' Barry began, ‘to show that the Irish Republican army would march through the streets of Dublin when and how they liked.' He called for the restoration of the Republic and finished with a request ‘for the furthering of the unity drive that brought them together until their common goal' of an Irish Republic ‘was reached'. Frank Ryan spoke of the pleasure it gave him to be once again on a platform, and especially to be beside Tom Barry. Like Barry, he said he wanted ‘Ireland free and united!'
[31]

Some weeks later when the draft of the new constitution was released, Barry and his Republican followers disliked the copper-fastening of ‘partition' which did not allow for ‘equal rights and equal opportunities' which ‘make up a free, united and independent nation.' He wrote of his hope that this ‘new charter' meant that ‘at last the people who had stood for freedom against the British and had stood in arms against their successors – the first Free State government – would now in an ordered national effort be welded into one unbeatable weapon which would break the connection with England, undo the conquest of Ireland and lay the foundations of a free and independent people, recognised by the world as a nation of free men and not British subjects.' The right of Republicans to express their views without a fear of being jailed ‘was a right', he wrote. ‘I know that the conquest cannot be undone by words or waving the tricolour.' No Republican could ‘accept or vote' for the constitution because:

(1) It maintains our status as members of the British commonwealth of Nations, and therefore, purports to legislate for us as British subjects only.'

(2) This constitution can only be voted on by the people of the Twenty-Six counties. Not alone does it not end partition but it perpetuates it by openly stating that it will only legislate for the people of the area known as Saorstat Éireann: that is the twenty-six counties … It brazenly allows not alone the de facto government of the six counties to continue in operation but it seeks to give a moral right to that British statelet to continue.

(3) It does not even express the Irish people's wishes that the British armies of occupation … should be withdrawn … If adopted by the Irish people [it] will ensure their remaining here until a strengthened and determined race which will first have to abrogate this document will order them to leave our shores, failing which they will attack them.
[32]

All Republican groups were united – Cumann na mBan, Sinn Féin, the Fianna, the IRA, with Tom Barry as one of the principal speakers to unite the group. This 1937 Constitution, Barry said, ‘would not give us our freedom' in a United Ireland. ‘My name wasn't going to this constitution. We issued a statement saying that all Republicans were to abstain. Actually if we had come out and voted against it, we would have defeated it. If we did, we would have been voting in effect for the imposed British constitution of 1922.'
[33]
The vote for the constitution was carried and ‘enacted by the people 1 July, 1937'. Barry disliked the situation because, he said, ‘we were still in the British empire. So my fight was to pursue my goal for the declaration of a Republic.'
[34]

At the graveside of Wolfe Tone in June 1937, where Tom Barry was the principal speaker, his words ‘spoken not read' had, as always, the total attention of the crowd. Barry could speak for a considerable time without notes and was able to captivate any audience. In Bodenstown he told the assembled crowds that they ‘should draw inspiration from the life and death' of Wolfe Tone – ‘namely the establishment and maintenance of the sovereign Republic of Ireland.' He asked his listeners ‘not to look backwards into history alone' but to take note also of ‘the current struggle'.

From all corners of Ireland thousands formed the ‘chain of marching separatists' who had come to listen and see the man they had heard so much about,
An Phoblacht
recorded. ‘Ten men cycled from Sligo. A contingent cycled from Clonmel. From Dundalk they came by lorry … Cumann na mBan, Mna na Poblachta, Fianna and Cumann na gCailiní were a colourful space … again and again the ranks were swept with applause,' the reporter wrote. When the oration finished the reporter passed a group and over-heard ‘one [who] asked what about tea! They hadn't the price of it … This section of the population, the men of no property.'
[35]

Some weeks later his friend, Tom Kelleher, was getting married. Barry was best man at his wedding. That afternoon Dr Ned Barrett was walking along Oliver Plunkett Street, Cork, with Jerry Crowley and Tom Barry, who was ‘on the run'. Two detectives walked up behind them. One put his hand on Barry's shoulder and said his few words of arrest. Immediately Ned (describing himself as a violent young Republican at the time) made for the detective's throat. Barry shouted, ‘Stand back!' Ned took the command, and Barry was taken away to Union Quay Barracks.

‘It was suggested in Cork that day that we should rescue Barry. My father owned quarries and had gelignite, and though my father was not a violent man, I said to him that they're thinking about rescuing Barry.

‘“Don't be a fool,” he said.

‘“Will you give me the stuff anyway?” I asked.

‘“I appeal to you, don't do anything foolish,” he said.

‘“I won't, but give me the stuff,” I said. Anyway he agreed.'

A meeting was held that night in Jim Counihan's, Pembroke Street, Cork, and according to some men who attended, feelings were very high. Once they had discovered that Dr Ned had obtained the gelignite they wanted to go to Union Quay and blast the barracks to release Barry.

In the midst of delegating people to do the job, Dr Ned jumped up: ‘Does Tom Barry want to be rescued?' Nobody could answer the question so it was agreed that they would ask Leslie, Tom's wife, to find out his wishes.

No, he answered. He did not want to be rescued. It was lucky he said so, because it was almost certain a number of lives would have been lost in the attempt. Four days later Tom Barry was released.
[36]

Den Carey, Tom's aide de camp, drove him around in an Austin mini. One night returning from a meeting in Kinsale, Barry was seated in the back of the crammed mini. At a sharp bend Carey drove straight into a wall. The car ‘folded up like a concertina', but the men who were ‘on the run' at the time, got out, stood on the road and thumbed back to Cork.

Another night eight men were packed into the mini. They were ‘flying' down St Luke's hill. Carey footed the brakes. Suddenly he shouted, ‘Tom the brakes aren't too good!'

Deep from the back seat Barry yelled, ‘Jasus Den! I didn't ask you to drive me to heaven!'
[37]

Though ‘on the run' Barry, CS, went to Germany ‘primarily to find out and if at all, the Nazis had penetrated the I.R.A.' because he was convinced that ‘the bombing plan' of Britain was ‘of course German inspired and financed.'
[38]
It was not until ‘very late in the decade' that Britain through their intelligence agencies, learned of ‘the IRA's sporadic contacts with Nazi Germany' initiated in 1935 which made them scrutinise such activities for their own security during the Second World War.
[39]

Barry could by now see that the Russell plan was gaining support. He made another effort to counter it. At a convention with Mc Garrity present (but not Russell) Barry proposed that the Dublin Brigade of the IRA ‘should march on the north that night'. The meeting, which lasted throughout the night, ended when the Russell scheme was carried by his supporters – beaten ‘by one vote'.
[40]

Hand-picked ‘delegates from Britain supported the proposal' on the bombing of Britain.
[41]
It was ‘a sour pill for many of the delegates to run counter to Barry whom they looked up to, and who always spoke with an air of authority and common sense.'
[42]

Barry had said if the ‘bombing' resolution was carried, he would leave his post. So at an army council meeting in Banba Hall, Dublin, he offered his resignation as chief-of-staff, but would remain on the army council executive. He disagreed with the bombing campaign, planned for England; furthermore, as a Cork man he wanted to return to Cork, and didn't really want to remain in Dublin, even ‘on the run'. Accordingly, Mick Fitzpatrick took over the position of chief-of-staff.
[43]

By April 1938, at a general army convention, which met in Abbey Street, Dublin, Russell and his advocates had ploughed much ground for their cause. Delegates from country areas expressed their impatience at the in-action of the inner circle of the GHQ army council. Barry, MacBride and Mick Fitzpatrick all came in for criticism.

The London bombing campaign was again brought to the fore, opposition to it centred around Barry who had totally condemned it as a foolish idea, ‘doomed to failure as the dynamiters of the 1880s'. He wouldn't agree to it ‘ethically, morally or physically'. There were, he said, enough British military in the six counties for the IRA to bomb, and that was the place out of which they should be bombed, not civilians in England – such would be similar to what the Black and Tans did in Ireland. In a flurry of bombastic language he asked what the hell's good was going to be gained from bombing cities. ‘Leave a bomb in a cloak room, leave a bomb in a hotel, and be 40 or 60 miles away with a time bomb, and you blow to pieces somebody who is working for £3.10 or £3.30 a week!' If they wanted action, he insisted, he would be prepared to take a squad into the House of Commons or House of Lords and get the real culprits – the legislators.
[44]

At this April 1938 IRA convention, Russell's supporters won control of the IRA. Russell, who had been court-martialled and suspended in January 1937, was now reinstated and appointed chief-of-staff. Five of the 12 executive members resigned – Tom Barry, Tomás MacCurtain, John Joe Sheehy, Seán Keating and Johnny O'Connor, stating that the army council was unrepresentative of the IRA, and in appointing a ‘dismissed Volunteer' as chief-of-staff, had behaved unconstitutionally'.
[45]
After the formation of a new executive which had a majority committed to Russell, Barry ‘publicly walked out' of this convention ‘over the passing' of the ‘resolution to start a bombing campaign', he told Sighle Humphreys as it was ‘inspired and financed by the Nazi German Band of the USA'.
[46]
He ‘could not be party to it as it was unethical and immoral'.
[47]
Moreover, he had no confidence in the new leadership and their scheme was ‘unworthy of consideration by the IRA.'
[48]

Back in Cork in May, Barry held meetings in the Thomas Ashe Hall, with Cork One (Cork City), Cork North-East, and Cork North Brigades, suggesting they refuse to give backing to the GHQ campaign. He felt they were being led down a road that would only lead to disaster.

By this time an Anglo-Irish agreement gave Ireland possession of the ‘Treaty ports' and the Economic War ended.
[49]

Barry, tired of being ‘on the run' with no means of livelihood and depending on the goodness of his friends, returned to work and was not worried about recapture. During all this period of being in and out of jail, illegal drilling and continuance in the IRA, Tom Barry, though often with long leaves of absence, tried to hold down an executive position with the Cork Harbour Board, whose management was extremely tolerant. Always willing to take a chance and not miss an opportunity, he told Tim Pat Coogan that ‘he had taken in arms at Cork Harbour.'
[50]

Again he was arrested, but let go after a few days, as there was no specific charge, which could be pinned on him. De Valera may have aided the process as he knew ‘how easily Barry could stir emotions in his favour. There were still those who would die for Barry.'
[51]