Crossbarry 100

Before revolutions become physical events, they must first occur in the consciousness of those who make them happen.

Éirí Amach na Cásca was revolutionary performance art.

It was demonstrated to the people of Ireland that another future was possible.

It was tragically fitting that the first insurgent casualty of Easter Week was Sean Connolly on the roof of City Hall.

He was an actor at the Abbey Theatre, and his final performance was in the premier of the embryonic Irish Republic.

The final curtain came down on the British Empire a long time ago.

However, it is still fitting to remember those days through the medium of theatre.

History forgotten is a betrayal.

History remembered is a weapon.

After that week, in 1916, Dublin was in ruins.

However, all was changed, changed utterly wherever green was worn.

Without the Rising, there would have been no War of Independence; that much is incontestable.

The surviving insurgents of Easter Week and Volunteers from around the country were rounded up and sent to Britain.

The university fo revolution in Frongoch was especially useful.

Very decent of the Brits that!

One hundred years ago today, there was a defeat for British arms in West Cork that would have far-reaching consequences.

A massively superior force encircled the Flying Column under the command of Thomas Bernadine Barry.

If they did not break out of the British cordon, then they would have been destroyed.

It was, quite literally, a fight for survival.

 

When he applied for a Military Service Pension in 1940, he stated that:

“I was the first Army officer to tackle the dreaded Auxiliaries at Kilmichael and I smashed their power and broke forever the morale of those mercenaries who were especially enlisted for their fighting qualifications and their bloodthirstiness. I did it with twenty two riflemen not one of whom had ever fired a shot in action previously… I left eighteen of them [the Auxiliaries] dead…and burned their lorries. And their comrades never waited for us once after that’.”

He continued:

“I was the most successful fighting officer the Army had from 1919 onwards. The men I commanded never had a defeat or a failure and I killed more of the enemy at, say, two of my engagements, Crossbarry and Kilmichael, with only a Brigade column, than any two other divisions combined”.

These were not idle boasts; the ex-Royal Artillery veteran was a highly effective field commander for the IRA.

Quite simply, the British couldn’t beat him.

In his later years, it tickled him that his memoir  “Guerrilla Days in Ireland” was required reading at Sandhurst!

However, the narrative that he laid down in the first few pages wasn’t entirely accurate.

In 1919 Barry returned to Ireland. In November of that year, he spoke on behalf of ex-servicemen and attended the Armistice Day commemoration, where the Union flag was raised in Bandon.

He was the son of an RIC man, and he had loyally served King and Country in the Great War fighting against the Ottoman Turks in Mesopotamia.

In the aftermath of their victory, the British Empire would invent a country there called “Iraq”.

Three years after the Easter Rising, there was nothing to suggest that Tom Barry was not a loyal Paddy.

It is remarkable that only twelve months after he took part in that Remembrance service in Bandon, he was ruthlessly wiping out Crown Forces at Kilmichael.

The following March, one hundred years ago today,  his Flying Column once more engaged Crown Forces to devasting effect.

Rather usurpingly, when he initially offered his services to the local IRA,  they simply didn’t trust him given his pro-British background.

Indeed, Barry’s service to the Irish Republic can be seen as him proving himself to doubters.

He certainly did that, and how!

Crossbarry was the closest thing in the War of Independence to a set-piece battle.

Tom Barry had only  103 Óglaigh under his command versus a force of 1200 British soldiers and 120 Auxies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZXs146ifbQ&ab_channel=WayneDaly

Once the war criminals of the Essex Regiment came under sustained IRA fire, many of them displayed the Dunkirk Spirt and ran, some of them leaving their weapons on the ground.

Their cowardly commander, Arthur Percival, would later surrender Singapore to the Japanese in 1942.

At Crossbarry, one hundred years ago today, the good guys won.

Moreover, their commander made the correct decision about Ireland’s future and his place in it.

He did that long before deployed his sections around that small village in the parish of Innishannon.