Kevinbarry:Willingtokill
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Saturday, October 24, 2020 Irish Independent 6 2020 CENTENARY Kevin Barry: willing to kill There was an outcry when the youthful UCD medical student was sentenced to be executed, but he was unlikely to have ever regretted his killing of a British soldier, writes Eunan O’Halpin unday November 1, 2020, All Saints Day, marks ing Volunteers in Cork jail were also approach- the centenary of the execution by hanging of ing death. Kevin Barry, an 18-year-old University College Calls for clemency for Barry came from across Dublin medical student. His eldest sister Kathy the political spectrum. The Unionist Sir James (Barry) Moloney (1896-1969) — Kitby to her fam- Campbell, lord chancellor of Ireland, who ily and friends — was my grandmother. The two had lost a son in the war, argued that Kevin’s were very close. ‘extreme’ youth was crucial: he had obviously Kitby became the self-appointed curator of been a hapless tool of older men. There were Kevin’s memory. Her preoccupation with him calls for mercy from highly decorated former precluded any sustained reference to her own officers studying at UCD and Trinity College extraordinary revolutionary career. The activi- Dublin, Catholic and Protestant clergymen, ties, traumas and imprisonments of her siblings Irish unionist grandees, trade unions, women and other relatives, similarly, went unnoted: activists and at public meetings in Britain. The Kevin was everything. cabinet in London debated the question, but left S Kevin Barry was convicted by court martial of the decision in the hands of the Irish adminis- killing Private Marshall Whitehead, a 19-year-old tration. There, the military commander Gen- soldier from Halifax in Yorkshire, in a misman- eral Sir Nevil Macready was adamant that Barry aged IRA raid on a military lorry outside Monks must die: his execution would be a clear signal Bakery on Church Street in Dublin on Septem- of British determination to crush rebellion, ber 20, 1920. Two other soldiers died, one aged would improve military and police morale and 20 and one just 15 (although the British army would serve to dissuade soldiers from joining thought he was 19). They were the first military the police in unofficial reprisals upon the gen- fatalities inflicted by the IRA in Dublin in 1920. eral population. The ageing and erratic Viceroy The IRA plan had been to rush and disarm a Field Marshal Lord French agreed. A crowd There is a surprising amount of evidence in party of soldiers seated in the back of a lorry dur- Why was there such cross-party sympathy for gathers Kevin’s school work from St Mary’s College in ing a routine collection of bread. Barry’s com- Barry, given that three young soldiers had been outside 1915-16 and Belvedere between 1916 and 1919, pany had staged such a coup against a military killed? Although everyone spoke of his youth, Mountjoy and in surviving letters, to show that by his mid- guard at the King’s Inns, disarming them with- at 18 years and 10 months, and after a year in Prison in teens he was well-informed on world affairs, was out a shot being fired. But, as the IRA officer in university, he was scarcely the “poor little Kevin Dublin during a consistent critic of colonialism generally, and charge told the Bureau of Military History, this Barry” of whom one priest wrote. A Volunteer the execution was an out-and-out separatist. These views pre- time an overexcited Volunteer needlessly dis- since the age of 15, he also had an unusually of Kevin dated the 1916 Rising, which further radicalised charged his weapon. The soldiers took up their wide span of operational experience both in Barry. him and his older sisters. rifles and returned fire. When more soldiers Carlow and in Dublin. He possessed a neat turn of phrase, and had PHOTO: appeared nearby, the IRA party dispersed into One key reason was imagery: the first photo- GETTY IMAGES a wry sense of humour. He sometimes wrote nearby streets. graphs that the family supplied were taken from about girls in juvenile laddish terms, but he Barry told Kitby that when he fired his Mauser group portraits of rugby and hurling teams. was clearly at ease with women and they liked automatic, it jammed; he took cover under the Taken between 1917 and mid-1919, these photo- him for that. This is reflected in his letter to his military lorry to clear the blockage, stood up and graphs naturally made him appear very young. friend Kathleen Carney, written the evening fired again, killing a soldier, before a further jam In his distinctive black and white hooped Belve- before his execution. It ends: “Now I’ll shut up. caused him to duck once more. While he was dere College sports jersey, the images showed I wish you every success in love and business. clearing the second blockage, his comrades a healthy young sportsman and team player, in Give my adieux to Des [her brother] & your melted away without giving any withdrawal appearance indistinguishable from thousands Reflection mother and say a little prayer for me when I cash signal. Barry found himself in the hands of the of British public school boys and university stu- and regret in. Your pal, Kevin.” aggrieved British party he had attacked. He was dents lost during the Great War. Immediately typically Such contemporary evidence leaves us with a driven to a nearby British base in the North Dub- before and after his execution, these images, conundrum. How could such an agreeable and lin Union, alongside one dead soldier and two together with his status as a ‘medical student’, come only sensitive young man, in the course of entry to mortally wounded. He was beaten up, threat- ‘Student der Medizen’, and ‘estudiante de years a highly respectable caring profession, be an ened with a bayonet, and left with a dislocated medicina’, were carried across the world. This after the unabashed killer? Yet history shows that this is elbow but, according to evidence at his court would scarcely have happened had he been, say, experience no great paradox. The Dublin IRA had a good martial, he refused to give any information other an unphotogenic farm boy who had left school number of UCD medical students in its ranks by than that “we were after the rifles”. at 12. of killing 1920. A few were blooded very early in the con- Refused defence For some days, his family did not visit him for fear of disclosing his identity. This gap in con- Kevin Barry: ‘I am off on Monday morning’ tact may have been decisive: when Kitby and Irish Independent, October 30, 1920 his mother did see Kevin, he announced that he refused to mount any defence to the charges laid against him. He came to this decision without benefit of any family or legal advice: he did not He was quite prepared to die. It Casement had done. of the sentence. Although his even speak to a solicitor until two days before was an honour to die for Ireland. As he was passing through a people come from Co Wicklow, his court martial on October 20. He did, how- So Kevin Barry stated when portion of the prison yesterday, he was born in Dublin and spent ever, participate in legal preliminaries to his visited in the condemned cell under a heavy escort, to see his all his life in the city. trial, suggesting he was open to the possibility at Mountjoy Prison yesterday visitors, he passed by a number The Irish Women’s Franchise of a defence. In the event, despite IRA headquar- morning by his sister and brother, of Sinn Féin prisoners. League sent a telegram to ters’ orders, he refused legal representation. and also by Father Augustine, of He shook hands with one of [British Home Secretary Edward] Following Barry’s conviction, his fate lay in Church Street. them whom he recognised, and Shortt protesting against the the balance. Feeling in Ireland was already run- The young lad still preserves smilingly remarked: “I am off on proposed execution of the boy, ning high. There had been a spread of unoffi- a demeanour of absolute calm, Monday morning.” and adding: “Remember Edith cial reprisals by Crown forces; in London even and was again quite bright and A party of ‘Black and Tans’ are Cavell [a British nurse executed The Times, a bastion of the establishment, was cheerful. now on duty in the prison, and by German forces in World War moved to denounce these. Then there was the He told his brother and sister one of them is constantly on duty One].” Three commemorative lengthy hunger-strike in Brixton prison of Ter- that be was quite prepared to in Barry’s cell. To Lord [Lieutenant of Ireland] photographic prints of Kevin ence MacSwiney, the Lord Mayor of Cork (it was die, and that he considered it Young Barry has a host of French they added: “You can stop Barry, two in postcard form this medieval civic title, rather than his other an honour to give his life on the schoolboy friends in the city, who the execution by the exercise of REPRODUCED COURTESY OF THE role as commanding officer of the Cork city IRA scaffold for Ireland, as Sir Roger are shocked at the terrible nature prerogative.” NATIONAL LIBRARY OF IRELAND that grabbed world attention). Two hunger-strik- Irish Independent Saturday, October 24, 2020 7 ... and die for his cause A copy of Kevin Gerard Barry’s birth flict: in April 1920 Hugo MacNeill, whom Kevin certificate of 8 Fleet knew from his year in St Mary’s College, was one Street, Dublin (born 20 of two members of ‘the Squad’ who calmly assas- January 1902), giving sinated Detective Henry Kells, a 42-year-old his parents’ names, Mary married man from Cavan, as he left his home Barry, née Dowling, and to go to work.