Bust of Tom Barry unveiled

A BUST of Gen Tom Barry was unveiled at Fitzgerald Park in Cork over the weekend by Cathal McSwiney Brugha, a grandson of Terence McSwiney, the former lord mayor of Cork who died on hunger strike in Brixton Prison in 1921.

Tom Barry died in 1980 and is buried in St Finbarr's Cemetery, Wilton. The Kerry-born general, who spent much of his life in Cork, was a prominent leader in the Irish Republican Army during the War of Independence.

The bust was placed in Fitzgerald's Park - where the former general came to relax and walk his dog. The bronze bust was cast from a sculpture by Seamus Murphy, taken when Barry was in his 40s. It has been erected on a limestone plinth.

It was paid for by the General Tom Barry National Commemoration Committee.

The bust was unveiled on the 88th anniversary of the most famous of Barry's ambushes, at Kilmichael. The ambush on November 28th, 1920, was a turning point in the War of Independence, when 36 IRA volunteers under the command of 23-year-old Barry killed 17 RIC auxiliaries, just one week after the Bloody Sunday killings in Dublin.