Life
1902-20; b. Dublin and raised in Dublin and Co. Louth; ed. UCD, where
he was a medical student at the time of his execution; joined Irish Volunteers;
arrested for part in fatal attack on three British soldiers in a bakery
in Dublin; went to gallows with ‘callous composure’ on 1 Nov.
1920, according to a Castle official; became subject of well-known ballad
(‘Kevin Barry gave his young life/for the cause of liberty ...’);
Barry and nine others executed by the British administration and buried
in Kilmainham prison yard in 1920-21 were exhumed in Nov. 2001 and reinterred
in graves chosen by their families, or by themselves in two instances;
the funeral procession, ending at the Republican plot in Glasnevin, was
attended by Mary McAleese, President of Ireland, as well as the entire
cabinet of the Fianna Fáil government - then on the eve of a general
election; conflicting attitudes towards the gestures were registered in
the press.
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Criticism
P. J. Ryan, arr., Kevin Barry: Irish Ballad (Dublin: Walton’s
Piano & Musical Instrument Galleries [1950]), [3]p[. [score] Gerard Westby,
Kevin Barry: A Play in One Act (Dublin: P. J. Bourke [1953]), 23pp.
C.M’N. [Conor MacNessa,] Our martyr boy: Kevin Barry, Victim of
Britonism in Ireland (Buenos Aires 1921), poem, 8pp., with port. Sean
Cronin, The Story of Kevin Barry (Cork: National Publications Committee
1965), 48pp.
Eunan O’Halpin, ‘Secret contacts failed to prevent executions’, in The Irish Times (13 Oct. 2001), p.7; and see conflicting views about reinterment [infra].
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Commentary
Fintan O’Toole, ‘Grotesque denial of Bloodshed’,
in The Irish Times, 5 October 2001 [column]
David Andrews, ‘No Shame in Mourning Kevin Barry’, The Irish Times (6 Oct. 2001)
Eugene Hogan, ‘O’Donoghue slams Paper’s revisionism’ (Sunday Independent, 21 Oct. 2001
Eogan Harris, ‘Cowardly narcissism is not the real Ireland’ [column]
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Notes
Last letter: wrote a last letter to Katherine (his sister): ‘I
believe the usual thing done in my case is to make a speech form the dock
or something but I couldn’t be serious long enough to do it. Besides,
anyone who ever knew me would never believe I wrote it’; ‘Yes,
K[athleen], as you remark, we have seen some good times but not as good
as might have been.’] See Tim Carey, Hanged for Ireland: The Forgotten
Ten Executed 1920-21: A Documentary History (Blackwater Press), 216pp.
Exhumation: the others exhumed and reinterred are Thomas Whelan; Patrick Moran; Patrick Doyle, Bernard Ryan, Frank Flood, Thomas Bryan (all the foregoing executed on 14 March 1921); Thomas Traynor (25 April 1921); Edmund Foley and Patrick Maher (7 June, 1921), the last-named jointly issuing a statement that included the words, ‘Our souls go to God at 7.00 in the morning, and our bodies when Ireland is free shall go to Galbally.’ Note reportage on same page that the bodies were found intact, easily identified, and with no signs of torture prior to execution.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)