In early June, 85 years ago, 100 men from the IRA's West Cork Flying Column approached the treacherous cliffs high above Gougane Barra. The time was around midnight, but each man knew that survival depended on immediately finding a route leading to the darkened valley below. They were being hotly pursued by thousands of British soldiers who were sweeping in a great arc south and west through the Cork countryside, while other troops blocked the escape routes to Kerry.
The odds were stacked against the IRA men but morale remained high. Their commander was, after all, the charismatic Tom Barry who, in just eight months, had established an international reputation as an able, cunning and fearless guerrilla fighter. Of course, the local terrain of rolling hills made ideal ambush territory, while fearsome British reprisals against local communities served only to turn an initially wavering population firmly towards the Republican cause. Against this, Barry's Flying Column consisted of about 100 ill-trained volunteers and suffered from chronic shortages of arms, ammunition and equipment. However, Barry - unlike many of his predecessors in the struggle for Irish Independence - was no well-intentioned but militarily naive revolutionary. Instead, he was an effective and ruthless fighter, committed to victory at all costs.
Soon after assuming command of the Flying Column in October 1920, he sprang to international prominence when at Kilmichael, south of Macroom, his volunteers annihilated a patrol of 18 British Auxiliaries. Subsequently Barry was taken ill and spent almost a month in Cork's Mercy Hospital.
Once discharged he was quickly back to his old ways, harassing crown forces and loyalist sympathisers. He was now Cork's most wanted man. When information was received that he had headquartered near Crossbarry, a major encircling operation, involving 1,000 British troops, began. Showing his credentials as a military strategist, Barry immediately did the unexpected, counter-attacking and breaking through the encirclement leaving, according to Irish estimates, over 30 soldiers dead. It was the only time in the War of Independence that crown forces were defeated in what amounted to conventional battle.
More and more British troops were now poured into West Cork to the extent that active IRA units were outnumbered 40 to 1. At the end of May a second attempt was made to destroy Barry's forces. Thousands of troops drawn from as far away as Kildare pursued the Flying Column relentlessly west and south and by early June, they were compressed into a tiny corner of the south-west. This time there was to be no escape. Seemingly undaunted by events, Barry led his men up Borlin Valley towards the Kerry border. If he continued he would, of course, fall into the hands of blockading British troops, but once again he did the unexpected. After nightfall Barry moved his men on to rugged mountain terrain west of Gougane Barra. If they could reach this sanctuary they would be outside the British blockade on Keimaneigh Pass and comparatively safe.
Barry's account in his book Guerilla Days in Ireland vividly describes a nightmarish march of many hours in thick darkness, often sinking knee deep in boggy ground. Eventually the column reached the top of Poll - a steep, rocky defile that narrows at one point into a treacherous gully. It was, however, the only feasible escape route into Gougane Barra Valley. Having descended Poll several times myself, I can assure the reader that even in daylight it is steep, knee-twisting terrain where even experienced hill-walkers must exercise great care. For the column descending in darkness it must have been an epic, with the constant danger of falling or being hit by rocks displaced by those above.
Barry vividly describes volunteers slithering downwards with the aid of stretched-out rifles and a rope. An hour later, "bruised and wrenched" but without serious injury, they reached the valley floor and were soon enjoying hospitality in Cronin's Hotel. In the morning, frustrated British forces abandoned the roundup and returned to barracks. Shortly afterwards Barry led his column triumphantly out of Gougane Barra. The Scarlet Pimpernel of West Cork had escaped once again.
A month later the Truce not only concluded the War of Independence, it also dropped a curtain on the glory days of Tom Barry. For the previous eight months, the requirements of the situation had perfectly matched Barry's deeply held convictions and particular skills. These circumstances never recurred.
He took the anti-Treaty side in the Civil War and was captured and imprisoned. Unsurprisingly, he once again escaped, thereby foiling plans for his early execution. Afterwards, he fought determinedly if fruitlessly for the Republican cause.
Even after formal hostilities ended in 1923, he remained committed to physical force, but from this point on he was a marginal if articulate figure far removed from the centres of political power. In many ways this seems a pity. Had Barry managed the compromises which so many of his less gifted comrades-in-arms achieved, his leadership talents would surely have been much in demand in constitutional Ireland.