by Meda Ryan
As winter set in, he stayed in the Camden Hotel near Patrick’s Bridge, Cork, returning home at weekends. While attending Skerry’s College he met a young man named Bill Hales. Bill belonged to one of the greatest Nationalist families in West Cork, members of whom were among the founders of the Volunteer movement in the area. This changed Tom’s life forever. Tom Hales was brigade commander of the Third West Cork Brigade that had been formed in late 1918. Bill, Seán, Bob and sister Madge were all involved in the movement. As the father Robert Hales, a Fenian, sat with his family and neighbours, around the fireside in Knocknacurra at night, he’d tell stories of the 1798 Rebellion, the famine in Ireland and the Fenian movement. Bill invited Tom to come to his home one evening. Here the first seeds of Republicanism were sown, as Tom became a regular visitor to the Hales’ family home. (Even though after the Treaty that family was split, and brother fought against brother, Tom Barry held them all in high esteem.)
‘The condition of the people was very depressed at that time.’ The older members of Tom’s family had already left for secure employment in Liverpool. Tom’s father, unable to earn sufficient to support the younger members of the family, would soon leave for Liverpool. With the aid of a first cousin he got ‘a good job’ as a store manager, and later joined the Liverpool police. Then the entire family moved, and Tom was alone. ‘Emigration to other lands was many a person’s story at the time. I missed my family, but I had great friends … I was anxious to complete my studies in Skerry’s College and get a job.’ However, his life shortly changed utterly.7
On 21 January 1919 Séamus Robinson, Dan Breen and other Volunteers in Tipperary ambushed police who were escorting council-men as they were taking gelignite to a quarry. The cargo was secured, but two policemen were killed. Similar incidents to secure firearms took place later throughout the country. There were raids and arrests by the military. The British government declared Dáil Éireann and other nationalist organisations illegal. Soon it became evident that force would be used to secure the British hold on Ireland. Volunteers kept secretly drilling and re-organising in tandem with raids and arrests by the police. In 1920 large reinforcements of Auxiliary military and Black and Tan forces were poured into Ireland to suppress the elected parliament of the people and to reinforce the military police.8
Under the leadership of men such as Liam Deasy, Seán Buckley, Charlie Hurley, Seán and Tom Hales, a Volunteer force had been building up in West Cork since before 1916. In fact, a group under the leadership of Tom Hales had set out from the Bandon, Ballinadee and Kilbrittain area to aid in the landing of arms from the Aud – the ‘Casement’ ship – at Tralee bay in April 1916. They had gone past Millstreet in north Cork and were heading for the border of Kerry when a scout arrived to tell them to return home.
After the 1916 Rising, Volunteers in West Cork periodically assembled, and towards the end of 1918 and early 1919 a large force existed. Secret drilling continued, but the absence of arms meant that means of obtaining them had to be devised. Though there were incidents, one of the first recorded group actions took place on 10 June 1919 when a party of Volunteers held up Constable Bolger and five soldiers outside Kilbrittain, and confiscated their rifles and equipment. In many areas in West Cork raids on police barracks and coastguard stations to obtain arms and ammunition became more frequent.
In November 1919 Maurice Donegan led an assault on a British motor torpedo boat in Bantry Bay, and secured a good quantity of arms and ammunition; this as well as raids around Kilbrittain, Bandon, and other West Cork areas formed the basis of armaments for the Cork No. 3 Brigade.
By now the police were using a heavy hand. On 5 June 1920, in Westminster an MP, W. Long, stated that ‘the police have not only shot, but they have shot with extremely good effect citizens ... engaged in disloyal conduct and ... hoped that they do it again.’9
The British Essex Regiment with 40 officers and 971 other ranks arrived in Co. Cork with Companies A, B, C, D. In March 1920 two platoons of D Company (The Essex) under the command of Major A. E. Percival arrived in Bandon. Major Percival became one of Tom Barry’s deadly enemies. With the men of his force he used the strongest methods to terrorise the people of West Cork. According to Kathleen Keyes McDonnell, ‘Long before we knew his name, he had struck terror into the whole countryside, swinging two guns at once with dash and swagger, glorying in his power and ingenuity; he had no match at all in this part of the country ... Fortunately for this country there was then living in Bandon a young man, recently demobilised from the British army, who was destined to become one of the greatest guerrilla leaders in the War of Independence. Percival had now met his match ... this man was Tom Barry.’10
One day Tom and a companion were stopped by British forces in the Laurel Walk, Bandon, and Tom was taken off to the barracks. Apparently, ‘he got a bit of a hiding’. This, it seems, was to obtain information about the IRA that he would have been expected to have acquired from the Hales family. Whether it was also meant as a warning, it certainly had that effect on Tom. The result was, that a ‘changed’ Tom Barry emerged. He admitted he was held up ‘several times and questioned about people by pups who had seen no war. The arrogance of the conqueror, the invader made me realise some day if there was a fight coming I would be on the side of Ireland’.11
Shortly after this incident he approached Seán Buckley, brigade intelligence officer, and asked if he would be accepted in the IRA. Naturally, because of Tom’s past history, the West Cork IRA officers were reluctant to consent without first having him ‘checked’. Seán Buckley told him to complete his studies in Skerry’s College until the end of the summer term, and meanwhile perhaps he could do some intelligence work for them, particularly in the Bandon area. On 2 July 1919 Seán Buckley enlisted Tom to assist him in intelligence work. From August ‘onwards (outside his other activities)’ Tom gave ‘extremely valuable information about the British Military and Police forces and their moves,’ Seán Buckley wrote. ‘His work helped us in a great measure to maintain the IRA without losses during a very difficult period … He took as grave risks’ during this period ‘as he did in later times when he commanded the men of West Cork in action.’
One evening towards the end of November 1919, Tom with Mick O’Herlihy and a few Bandon Volunteers went to the ‘Kilbrittain district’ to secure men so that the Bandon police ‘who were beating the people with trench tool handles’ could be dislodged. Tom and Mick O’Herlihy asked Con Crowley, Cork No. 3 brigade staff captain for ‘the loan of two revolvers which I gave them,’ Con wrote. Barry, Herlihy, Con Crowley and Tom Hales entered Bandon on several nights ‘armed with revolvers’. Barry, from his intelligence work with Seán Buckley knew the men to target. ‘Their forthright actions halted, at least temporarily, the frightening activities,’ according to Tom Hales. Soon Barry became engaged in the securing of arms and ‘was always one of the men carrying a revolver' while engaged ‘in his important Intelligence work’.12
On Wednesday, 3 May 1920, the first batch of prisoners, 15 men from Tipperary, arrived at Cork jail. On the same night Terence MacSwiney, the lord mayor of Cork, following a meeting in the Hales house in Knocknacurra, escaped arrest by jumping through the back window as the military approached the house. MacSwiney had previously dismissed the warning given by Tom Hales not to sleep in the house; Tom himself and Seán went to a hide-out for the night.
But in August Terence MacSwiney was arrested in Cork City Hall. He went on hunger-strike in Brixton Prison, thus focusing world attention on the Irish cause. He died in October 1920 on the seventy-fifth day of his hunger-strike.
In July Barry’s friend Tom Hales with Pat Harte, brigade quartermaster, were arrested. Having failed to get information from them the police handed them over to Percival and the Essex torture squad from whom they received one of the worst torture treatments in the War of Independence. They
were stripped, dragged for miles after a lorry, their hair was pulled out and their nails were pulled off with pincers. Finally Pat Harte was transferred to a mental hospital and remained insane until his death a few years later. Tom Hales, who kept his sanity but suffered severely, was sentenced to penal servitude and held in Pentonville Jail, where he was kept until after the Treaty was signed. In the British account Ewan Butler notes that there is no mention of the torture, only that ‘reliable information was a matter of extreme difficulty’ that ‘scanty details pieced together from captured documents had to suffice.13
As an explanation for Tom Barry’s change of attitude Charlie O’Keeffe recalls, ‘I know that the torture of Hales and Harte had a profound effect on Barry. At the time it was easy to turn a person. I remember in my own case I was in Newcestown at the sports. It was the same Sunday that young Galvin was shot during an ambush at Lissarda near Crookstown. When I heard that, coming back, it annoyed me so much that I decided there and then to join the movement.’14
Tom Barry didn’t know then, nor was he ever to know, that the first reaction of Seán Buckley and other brigade officers was one of mistrust. Why was the son of an RIC man, who had spent four years in the British army and upheld their policy upon his return to Ireland, seeking membership of the IRA? ‘Naturally we had to be cautious. Questions were asked: Could he be a spy? Was he genuine? They set traps for him. He was well tested before being accepted,’ Tom Kelleher commented.15
Once he joined, he got caught up in the movement. He himself says that he had never read the programme of Sinn Féin. Nor was he concerned that three-fourths of the people of all Ireland had at the end of 1918 ‘declared in a British general election for a Sovereign Independent Irish Republic, nor that Dáil Éireann had accepted responsibility for the IRA’.
‘These things seemed to be of little matter then. But what did matter was that one had to decide whether to aid the occupying forces and be a traitor, sit on the ditch and be a cynic or join your own people and do the right thing.’ However, as the struggle developed and many young men died by the bullet, ‘one soon learned that programmes that included political, social and economic contexts were important,’ he maintained. ‘Being the army of a democratically elected government, defending its people and its embryonic institutions changed the world-wide image of the IRA and enhanced the morale of its Volunteers.16Tom felt ‘the outlawing – the banning of Dáil Éireann, the elected parliament of the people’ should be challenged.17In August Seán Buckley, Charlie Hurley, Liam Deasy and other officers knew that in the rapidly changing pattern of action by the ‘ruthlessness’ of enemy ‘extremists in Bandon and Bantry,’ morale had reached a low ebb. To counteract this a trained brigade column was required; consequently a suitable officer to train and lead the new force was considered. The name of Tom Barry was once more brought to the fore. Seán Buckley sent for him; he was no longer staying at home as he anticipated another swoop by the British forces.
The meeting between Tom Barry and the officers took place in Barrett’s, Killeady, where the urgency of training men to fight and to defend themselves was discussed. Barry says he was reluctant to get involved at first as he wanted ‘to complete’ his education in ‘college in Cork and get a job’.18A week later Tom, invited to attend a staff meeting at brigade headquarters in O’Mahony’s of Belrose, was questioned by Charlie Hurley and Ted O’Sullivan while other officers listened. Liam Deasy said, ‘I observed his reactions closely. His answers were direct and clear. He was smart and military in his appearance and gave the impression of being sharp, quick and dynamic. He presented himself to me as a very likeable person and won my complete confidence … we felt that he would have much to offer as a professional soldier who had seen active military service in the Middle East. His subsequent distinguished service in the national cause became an inspiration, and as a guerrilla fighter his name became a household word throughout the country.’19 Initially Tom Barry was reluctant to allow his name to go forward. However he consented, and having been proposed and seconded, his name was entered on the register and he was appointed officer in charge of training. ‘I told them I knew damn all about it, but I’d do my best’.20 ‘Once he was told he was accepted he got going right away,’ Danny Canty recalled. ‘He stood up and spoke. He talked of past history and our obligation towards Ireland and why we should fight for this country of ours. He filled us with fire, telling us we needed to train. Any of us who liked could go home, but he’d prefer we’d stay, as he wanted to begin right away. That was a Saturday evening. He took us up the hills and we worked together that evening and all day Sunday. We didn’t go to Mass or meeting. I will always remember this good-looking young fellow, full of life and ambition, his hair blowing in the summer breeze.’21
That Sunday afternoon was forever etched in Seán MacCárthaigh’s mind. Tom’s vitality impressed him as he pushed young lads like himself to act with soldiery precision. ‘On a few occasions subsequently on your way to Skerry’s College, we travelled together ... on the morning train’. Seán approached Charlie Hurley on his intention to abandon his studies and join the fighting column. However, Charlie ‘ordered’ him back to the city to continue his work as the intelligence gatherer and co-ordinator of dispatches between the Cork brigades. It was ‘more important from their view point at this juncture as they could not arm all the men available locally.’22
Personnel at this intense Belrose meeting outlined a system of training the brigade. Tom Kelleher observed that ‘Barry was bursting with constructive ideas that were debated fully. He was mature beyond his years – a genius.’23
A few weeks later Tom gave another preliminary talk at Coakley’s near Begley’s forge. Tom Kelleher was present. ‘I can almost memorise it to this day. It was all about Ireland, and how it was once a nation and will be again, that we were entitled to our freedom, but we’ll have to fight for it he said, and we’ll have to get it. It was powerful stuff. We were filled with enthusiasm. Then he said, “Training is important. We’ll have to get going right away”.’24
Brigid O’Mahony recognised him arriving at her aunt’s house one day, sporting a beard and wearing a hat. ‘Be careful of him, he’s a British spy,’ she said to her uncle. ‘I know him; he was in the British army; his sisters are in our school.’ Her uncle passed on the word, which was met with the rebuke, ‘Tell her [Brigid] to keep her mouth shut; we know he’s Tom Barry, he’s with us now,’ was the reply.25
The Third West Cork Brigade was one of the three Cork brigades formed on 5 January 1919. Its eastern boundary extended west of the Old Head of Kinsale, north to a point two miles south of Waterfall, west to one mile south of Cookstown skirting Kilmichael, to the southern end of the Pass of Keimineigh on the Kerry border, then west of Glengarriff to the sea enclosing all of the Castletownbere peninsula. The drawbacks of the brigade were many: shortage of arms, machine-guns, bombs, explosives and engineering material; lack of transport, no barracks to retire to; and the hardship of obtaining food and clothing as they went from one area to another. Also, unlike the enemy, the British troops, who had battle experience gained during the 1914–1918 War and were accustomed to fighting and bloodshed, the West Cork IRA had no experience of war. Most of the members were untrained in the use of arms, tactical manoeuvring and foot-drill, but under Tom Barry’s leadership, armed with the willingness to learn, the brigade became highly efficient.
According to Barry, ‘This was the force which was to attempt to break by armed action the British domination of seven centuries’ duration. Behind it was a tradition of failure … And sadly it must be recorded that when West Cork women and children died in 1846 and 1847 of hunger, and the British ascendancy seized their food, not a West Cork man drove a pike through any of the murderers of his family.’26
In the brigade there were seven battalions, organised around the chief towns. Each
battalion was divided into companies and these in turn were divided into sections. Unlike a regular army, numbers were flexible, depending on population and activity in a locality.
Battalion staff and company officers were to be trained first. These in turn were to act as training officers to their home units. Barry suggested the setting up of five separate training camps so that the brigade would be able to call upon the services of a large body of men as the need arose. The locations chosen were in Kilbrittain, Ballymurphy, Dunmanway, Schull and Bantry. The camp houses were chosen for their isolation and for having a good range of outside buildings for the Volunteers to sleep in while scouts and sentries kept watch.
The first training camp commenced at the end of September in O’Brien’s, Clounbuig, Kilbrittain – a house where the males and the females were all involved in the movement. All the men slept in the one barn. Training continued for about ten hours a day, generally extended to a week to inculcate military discipline and to teach elementary tactics. ‘The men were told to act as if they were expecting an attack at any hour of the day or night … They practised occupying their defence positions, aiming and trigger pressing and moving in extended order as directed. It was an unorthodox approach to training, but the circumstances necessitated this departure,’ he recalled. All that mattered he felt was that the men would obey orders, shoot straight and move in proper formation. ‘Their ability to salute or to form fours smartly wasn’t in the circumstances, considered.’