Tom Barry
Page 27
When British Terror failed to win
Allegiance from our people then,
The Black and Tans they were brought in,
They thought they’d teach us manners ...
The grander tune of all is played
By the fighting squad of the Third Brigade,
Whose glorious deeds will never fade,
The men of Barry’s Column.[39]
When the Truce came into force the fighting men of West Cork were dazed by the speed of events, and their first reaction was one of disbelief. They felt it couldn’t last beyond the month. ‘Whatever decisions were made at GHQ before the Truce and however these decisions were influenced by the military situation, they were certainly made without consultation with one of the areas which had borne the brunt of the fighting,’ Barry wrote in an unpublished document. ‘Lynch was at division headquarters when the official notification of the Truce was received … no previous indication of such a possibility had come from an official source, and little notice was taken of the newspaper rumours which preceded it. He issued the necessary orders for the cessation of hostilities but it was clear to him that if the Truce was prolonged … the effect on morale and efficiency was bound to be detrimental.’[40]
Although the flying column was provisionally disbanded, nevertheless its members were ordered to remain on call in case hostilities were resumed. They were to dump their guns, put them aside – but, as it happened, not put them away forever.
Lord Bandon was released.
On the day the Truce was announced a dispatch arrived for Tom from the adjutant-general stating that the president had appointed him chief liaison officer of the martial law area, covering eight southern counties. He did not welcome the president’s appointment. However, he took up this position on Monday 11 July 1921, the day the Truce came into force.
As noon approached on 11 July he hid his colt automatic, bade a temporary goodbye to his friends, and set out for Cork city. It was the end of a phase, but not the end of his guerrilla days.
Notes
[1]Leslie Price, Sighle Humphreys Papers, P106/1412(1), UCDA; Tom Barry, TB private papers.
[2]Tom Barry to Kenneth Griffith, unedited and not transmitted, RTÉ Sound Archives.
[3]Jim O’Mahony’s ‘recollections’ to Tom Barry 15/2/1949; Denis Lordan, author interview 7/7/ 1974; Charlie O’Keeffe, author interview 6/11/1976; see also Deasy, p. 296.
[4]Tom Barry, Irish Press, 1 July, 1948; Leslie Price de Barra, Sighle Humphreys Papers, P106/1412 (1) and (2), UCDA; O’Broin, Dorothy Stopford recollections, p. 179. The earl was held at Murphy’s of Scaife, at John L. O’Sullivan’s and a number of other houses, as the IRA kept moving him to frustrate any informers.
[5]Tom Barry notes, TB private papers; Irish Press 1 July 1948.
[6]Tom Barry manuscript, TB private papers; Irish Press 1 July 1948; Barry, Guerilla Days, p. 217.
[7]Tom Barry, manuscript, TB private papers; Barry, Guerilla Days, pp. 211, 212.
[8]Tom Barry, Reality, p. 49.
[9]Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson’s Diary, 18 and 23 May 1921, C. E. Callwell, Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, His Life and Diaries.
[10]Liam Deasy, author interview 5/12/1970; The men were Jim O’Mahony, Jerh McCarthy, Liam and Tom. The meeting had been held at White’s Rathrout; see also Deasy, pp. 306, 307: Jerh Cronin to author on his courage, 10/1/ 1981.
[11]Daily Mail, 28 June 1921; Irish Press, 1 July 1948. Dan O’Mahony, seriously wounded in the leg was the IRA’s only casualty.
[12]FO’Donoghue Papers, MS 31421 (12), NLI; Military Registration Board File.
[13]Tom Barry to Raymond Smith, Irish Independent, 7 July 1971.
[14]Ibid.
[15]Strickland Diary, 17 May 1922, Strickland Papers, IWM.
[16]Tom Barry manuscript, TB private papers; Tom Barry, author interview.
[17]Tom Barry to Raymond Smith, Irish Independent, 7 July 1971.
[18]Tom Barry to Nollaig Ó Gadhra, 1969, RTÉ Sound Archives.
[19]Callwell, 18/5/1921.
[20]Montgomery to Percival 14/10/23, Percival Papers 4/1, IWM.
[21]Tom Barry to Raymond Smith, Irish Independent, 7 July 1971.
[22]Leslie Price, Statement, Sighle Humphreys Papers, P106/1412 (1) and (2), UCDA; Leslie Price de Barra, author interview 22/4/1973.
[23]Percival Papers, 4/1, 18, IWM.
[24]Tom Barry manuscript, TB private papers; Deasy, p. 297.
[25]Tom Barry to Raymond Smith, Irish Independent, 7 July 1971.
[26]Denis O’Callaghan, author interview 20/2/1974; Tom Barry in response to an audience question following a lecture to history students, UCG, recording, courtesy of John Browne.
[27]Tom Barry to Raymond Smith, Irish Independent, 7 July 1971.
[28]Flor O’Donoghue, P176/96, O’Malley Notebooks, UCDA.
[29]Eyewitness, An Cosantóir, 3 January 1941.
[30]Tom Barry manuscript, TB private papers.
[31]Tom Barry and Professor John A. Murphy, in conversation, RTÉ Sound Archives.
[32]Tom Barry manuscript, TB private papers; Barry, Guerilla Days, pp. 212, 213 and pp. 63, 64.
[33]Hart, p. 133; Barry, The Reality, p. 14.
[34]Paddy O’Brien’s son, Liam O’Brien confirms the camaraderie of the men; see P17b series, Liam Deasy, Barney O’Driscoll, Stephen O’Neill, Billy O’Sullivan, Flor Begley, Jack Fitzgerald, Ralph Keys, Seán Lehane – all of Barry’s flying column, O’Malley Notebooks, UCDA.
[35]Flor Begley, O’Malley Notebooks, P17b/111, UCDA.
[36]Comdt Christy O’Sullivan to Irish army officers, on location Kilmichael, recording, courtesy of Eamonn Moriarty.
[37]Tom Barry to Nollaig Ó Gadhra, 1969, RTÉ Sound Archives.
[38]Col M. J. (later Major General) Costello, An Cosantóir, 10/3/1941.
[39]Another song The Third West Cork Brigade, ‘In good old Cork, by famed West Cork, The Third West Cork Brigade.’
[40]Tom Barry in a document – first two pages missing, TB private papers.
13 - Truce and Marriage to Leslie Mary Price
It was Easter Monday morning 1916. Ireland was part of the British empire, its seat of government in Ireland controlled from Dublin Castle with a British army.
At ten o’clock on this sunny morning a group of armed men wearing unfamiliar green uniforms and slouched hats marched determinedly, taking up positions at various points in Dublin city. One group marched with their leader Pádraig Pearse through Sackville Street (later O’Connell Street), swung into the General Post Office and ordered the staff out a gunpoint. Windows were barricaded and the tricolour – the green, white and orange symbol of the Republic, which was to be proclaimed – was raised on top of the building. The proclamation was then read. Although the Rising was to fail in its aim of achieving independence for the Irish Republic, without this rising there might have been no subsequent success.
On the north side of Dublin on that Easter Monday morning a group of women Volunteers mobilised. Shortly after assembly they were disbanded and told to go home, as there would be no rebellion. Among this group of women was nineteen-year-old Dublin-born Leslie Price. A national teacher trained in the Dominican Convent, Belfast, she was a member of Cumann na mBan and had acquired knowledge of first aid through this organisation.
Between the great strike and lock-out of 1913 and the 1916 Rising she acted as secret courier for men like Pearse, Seán Mac Diarmada and Tom Clarke. Tom Clarke’s tobacconist shop was used as a ‘post office depot’ for the organisation. Present at the funeral in Glasnevin of the Fenian, O’Donovan Rossa in 1915, Leslie said that the graveside oration delivered by Pádraig Pearse left an indelible mark on her: ‘The fools, the fools! – They have left us our Fenian dead. And while Ireland holds these graves, Ireland unfree shall never be at peace’. Soon she decided to join Cumann na mBan.
Leslie Price helped those Volunteers who were trying to free Ireland from British domination. She knew that her brothers Seán and E
amonn had already marched with Pearse, so she and her friend Brid Dixon decided that they would go to the GPO instead of going home. It was about 1 p.m. when they arrived there and reported to Tom Clarke.
Initially they cooked meals and helped the men in the Hibernian Bank. On Tuesday forenoon the building came under attack from British troops. Leslie was standing beside Capt. Tom Weafer, OC of the Hibernian Garrison, when a bullet whizzed past her and into his stomach. As she was about to attend to him another bullet lodged in the chest of man who had gone to Capt. Weafer’s aid. She had just time to say a prayer in Weafer’s ear when he died.
The small garrison was ordered to evacuate to the GPO However, Tom Clarke asked Leslie to stand by. With the other women she acted as courier between the GPO and Fr Matthew Hall, carrying messages backwards and forwards to the background of gunfire, blood and death. On Wednesday, field guns opened a strong bombardment which set many of the buildings in Sackville Street on fire. The upper storey of the GPO was wrecked. The defenders fired incessantly, and with the aid of the women the wounded were evacuated. On Thursday there was continuous bombardment by the British forces as they gradually closed in on the GPO when barricades went up at the top of Moore Street. Up to this, she was not scared. But when Tom Clarke sent her to cross Sackville Street into Marlborough Street to get a priest to come to the GPO, she felt ‘really frightened’. With ‘bullets whizzing everywhere’ she hugged the walls, intermittently darting into the shadows. At ‘any moment’ she felt a bullet could get her in the back. During a gripping few minutes she hid beneath Parnell’s statue where British troops had blocked the way with a manned barricade. Eventually she ‘skirted’ it.
With her ‘heart pounding’ she arrived at the presbytery (opposite the Department of Education) which was occupied by British troops. A few minutes later she had to face the return journey. This time she was not alone. A priest went with her. Safely back, her horror mission accomplished, her normal state of mind returned. That night as the shelling bombarded the GPO and timber and concrete scattered everywhere, Leslie darted around to help the wounded. The shelling, the shouting, the terror and the burning continued.
Pearse, whom Leslie remembers as a quiet, gentle type of man, called all the women (about 25 of them) together on Friday morning around 10 o’clock. He told them they would have to leave. It was a sad occasion. Some of the Cumann na mBan protested, saying they would like to stay and help to the end. ‘But really we knew we’d have been a handicap, it was better for us to go.’
As Leslie was about to leave she passed Tom Clarke (who would later die before a firing squad). He caught her hand and said, ‘Tell my wife the men were wonderful to the –’ he didn’t finish the sentence, but she knew the missing word was ‘the end’. About three of the young women remained behind, and Leslie with the others filed out of the side door into the smoke, ruins and dead bodies on Henry Street. With Louise Gavan Duffy who was in charge, under the protection of the white flag, these young women carried some wounded men on stretchers and took them to Jervis Street Hospital.
Knowing that they might be arrested on the way home – as they were – they concocted a story. They said that they were pupils at the Dominican Convent who had been out walking with their teacher, Miss Louise Gavan Duffy (who was in fact a teacher at that school), and that while they were passing the GPO the men had called on them to come and help. Eventually, following some further questioning, they were released and went as arranged (because they knew they might be followed) to the Dominican Convent where the nuns kept them until it was safe to go home.
Following these events Leslie spent her time visiting prisoners and talking to their dependents. Her brother Seán had been one of the stretcher-bearers who took the wounded James Connolly from the GPO. Years later she recalled those ‘sad days’ when they listened ‘for tidings’ as the men ‘were shot one by one’. Like the many Volunteers of that time, both Seán and Eamonn Price were arrested and interned in Frongoch for some months.
Her period as a schoolteacher wasn’t a very happy or satisfactory one, as the authorities kept checking to establish if she was actually taking class or whether she was influencing her pupils in some way. Eventually she gave up teaching and became an organiser for Cumann na mBan. Elected director of organisation she mustered women in the four provinces, and got to know the headquarters of every brigade in the country. Her bicycle was her constant train companion. When she got to a destination it speeded her movement and helped her execute her task more efficiently.
It was on one such visit to Cork that she met Charlie Hurley. As the months progressed their friendship deepened. However, fate intervened and Charlie was killed. Since that sad night in the Clogagh graveyard she had met Tom Barry on a few occasions – briefly at meetings and when she brought guns and ammunition. When she was sent to Cork to check on the welfare of the hostage Lord Bandon for De Valera, she had a long talk with Tom.
With the implementation of a Truce in July 1921 Tom decided he would like to meet Leslie again, so with the consent of the O’Mahony family of Belrose she was invited for a holiday. Following a whirlwind romance the couple decided to get married. The wedding took place in St Joseph’s church, Berkeley Road, with the reception in Vaughan’s Hotel in Dublin on 22 August 1921.
Leslie, wearing a white frilly blouse, navy suit and picture hat upon which was set a cluster of varied-coloured flowers, looked radiant. Her mother, father and her four brothers attended, as well as her only sister, Eva, who was her bridesmaid.
The Dáil was adjourned for a day to allow invited members to attend the wedding. Many of the great names in modern Irish history were present: Eamon de Valera, Michael Collins, Richard Mulcahy, Countess Markievicz, Liam Tobin, Seán Hales, Liam Lynch, Liam Deasy and the best man, Dick Barrett, and many more – friends and working companions of Leslie and Tom. The only known photograph in existence has De Valera, President of Sinn Féin, seated between Leslie and Tom. Whether this is because the photographer was paid for by the Dáil or because of De Valera’s importance at the time is unknown. But it is a historic record of unity some months before many would fight each other.
This marriage, born out of war, blossomed and matured into a deep love and understanding as the years progressed. The honeymoon was spent in West Cork, and during the early days of their marriage, they stayed in O’Mahony’s converted house in Belrose and in Barrett’s, Killeady. They had no home.[1] For many of their earlier years together, Tom told his friend John Browne of hardships when they ‘had to count the cream crackers, and measure the butter!’[2]
For their twenty-fifth anniversary Tom gave Leslie a gold Claddagh ring. ‘This,’ she said, proudly fingering it in a hospital bed 60 years after their wedding, ‘this is the heart enclapsed by hands and crowned with love.’ She then drew attention to the gold disc broach, which pinned the top of her bed jacket together. ‘He gave me this for our fiftieth anniversary. ‘’Twas hand-made and engraved in Egans. Isn’t it nice!’. Encircled within a Celtic design was the following:
22-8–1921
To Leslie Mary
With Love
Tom
22-8–1971
From the early days of marriage Tom had to keep on the move. In his new role as chief liaison officer for the martial law area, he was said to have been very strict. His instructions were to report to the OC Seventeenth Infantry Brigade at 3 o’clock on 11 July 1921. He travelled in uniform to Cork city and notified ‘the enemy’ also ‘in uniform’ of his presence. Brigadier-General Higginson telephoned him at HQ Cork Brigade and asked if he was in uniform. Barry said, ‘Yes!’ Higginson would see him, but not in uniform. Barry said, ‘I don’t in>tend entering Victoria Barracks in uniform. But I’ve worn it for the past 12 months and will continue to wear it when and where I please’.
He entered the barracks dressed in civilian clothes, and was escorted by two officers to General Strickland’s office.
‘You are the representative of De Valera here?’ one
officer asked.
‘I am not! I want you to understand that I am an officer appointed by GHQ IRA to meet you and co-operate in carrying out Truce terms’. The officer went in and then returned.
‘I’m afraid the general can’t receive you. He’s been in touch with headquarters and he can’t receive you except as Mr de Valera’s representative.’
‘That’s fine with me. I didn’t want to see him in the first place. It was he who requested the meeting.’
Barry believed it was deliberate on the part of the British administration not to recognise the IRA as an army. ‘I was a soldier fighting in a war, and when the Truce came I was appointed by the government of the Republic to represent its army, and I wasn’t about to be looked on as henchman for De Valera or anybody else.’
He made a statement to the officer. Then he told the officer to repeat his words: ‘General Barry will be glad to meet you if you are meeting him as an officer of the Irish Republican army, and not as De Valera’s representative, Mr Collins’ representative or Mr X’s representative.’