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One of the many interesting facets of the complicated character of Tom Barry is that his father was a Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) policeman.
Thomas Barry was serving in Killorglin, Co Kerry when Tom was born in 1897. Tom was 10 when his father left the RIC and moved his family back to his home town of Rosscarbery, Co Cork.
The parish of Rosscarbery produced three of the great figures of Irish republicanism, Jeremiah O'Donovan-Rossa, Michael Collins and Tom Barry.
Of the three, Barry is the most complex. He followed his father into service to the Crown by joining the British army at the age of 17 in 1915. He spent the war serving with the Royal Field Artillery in the Middle East.
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According to his own account in Guerilla Days in Ireland, Tom Barry's Irish conscience was stirred by hearing of the Easter Rising in May 1916 while serving in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq).
“I awoke to the echoes of guns being fired in the capital of my own country, Ireland. It was a rude awakening, guns being fired at the people of my own race by soldiers of the same army with which I was serving,” Barry recalled.
Barry's melodramatic account does not square with his actions after the war. Historian and former Irish army soldier Gerry White has discovered that Barry failed an examination for the position of male clerk in the Ministry of Labour in Ireland in 1919. His file in the UK National Archives in Kew reveal he also requested, unsuccessfully, to be posted to the British civil service in India in 1920.
Barry was prominent in the Bandon Branch of the National Federation of Discharged and Demobilised Sailors and Soldiers (NFDDSS) and addressed a large meeting of them in Cork in November 1919 in which he complained that jobs were being given to civilians who did not serve in the war when they should be been given to "discharged and demobilised men".
Hell has no fury like an ex-British serviceman scorned and in the summer of 1920 Barry joined the IRA despite the reservations many of them had about his background.
Nowadays Barry is best known for his role in inflicting the worst defeat of the War of Independence on British forces. Sixteen Auxiliaries were killed at Kilmichael, Co Cork, on November 28th.
Yet his actions in March 1921 were the equal in military terms of what had happened at Kilmichael.
On March 19th, Barry’s little column had swollen to more than 100 men.
They intended to ambush British lorries which had been observed passing through Crossbarry during the week. A column of this size was bound to attract undue attention and when Gen Sir Edward Strickland, the commander of the 6th Division in Cork, heard about it, he set about encircling the column which had been harassing crown forces for the previous six months.
When faced with a numerically superior foe, estimates range between 350 and 1,200 British troops, Barry had to decide to fight or flight. He and his men did both, marching 20 kilometres to evade the British, and using covering fire to keep them at a sufficient distance to get away.
Barry’s contention that the British “suffered their greatest defeat in all their fights losing 47 dead including six officers”, as he stated in his application for a military pension, were not borne out by the facts. Approximately 10 members of the crown forces died at Crossbarry.
Nevertheless it was a significant victory for the IRA. Had the column been captured, it would have been a devastating reverse for the war in Cork at a time when the British were tightening the noose on IRA activities and saturating the countryside with troops.
Emboldened by the escape at Crossbarry, Barry decided to target the RIC barracks in his hometown on March 30th, 1921.
The attack on Rosscarbery barracks demonstrated a new ruthlessness on the part of the IRA and a technical prowess with explosives which hitherto not been observed.
The barracks was one of the best fortified in the country and regarded as impregnable.
Barry employed an ex-British soldier like himself to build a 400-pound bomb which was laid at the front door of the barracks.
The force of the explosion was the cue for the IRA party to rush the barracks.
The RIC inside fought a brave fight, but they were outnumbered and doomed once they retreated to the upper floor of the barracks. The IRA men burned the stairs to the barracks leaving them no option but to surrender. The dead and wounded were lowered out of the upstairs window.
Two officers, Sgt Ambrose Shea and Constable Charles Bowles, were killed in the attack on Rosscarbery barracks and nine other constables were injured.
The barracks was left a smoking ruin.
Contemporary photographs show just three walls standing. It was a success for Barry and gave him some satisfaction to be master in his own house after a fashion.
Rosscarbery was free of a British military presence from then until the Truce of July 11th, 1921, which brought the war to an end.