Tom Barry, Irish Politician, IRA Leader and ex-British Soldier

[corisande]

As far as I can see we have not had a thread solely on Tom Barry's British Army career

 

Barry rose to prominence in the IRA in Cork during the War of Independence, and made his reputation with the ambushing of an ADRIC patrol at Kilmichael in which 17 of the 18 man patrol died - the link is to my page on Kilmichael

 

I had always known that he was in the British Army. I think that Tom Barry served with the 14th Battery, 4th Brigade, RFA, as # 100399. He enlisted 30 June 1915 in Cork and was posted to the depot at Athlone on 1 July. He served in Mesopotamia from January 1916 and in Palestine from June 1918. Can someone confirm that I have the correct Tom Barry here.

 

An interesting article appeared in Irish Times recently - click for link - that gives details of Barry's putative British Civil Service career. Written by @Ronan McGreevy who wanders past this forum from time to time. The nuts and bolts of Ronan's article on that link in the Irish Times is

 

In Guerrilla Days in Ireland, his bestselling autobiography published in 1949, Barry wrote that his national conscience had been awoken when he heard of the Easter Rising while serving with the Royal Field Artillery (RFA) in Mesopotamia in 1916.

However, 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”.

Mr White, who has spent several years researching Barry’s life, writes in 1920 - War of Independence, published by The Irish Times on Wednesday, that it would appear he was not radicalised by the Easter Rising as he had claimed, but was among the tens of thousands of Irish-born British soldiers who returned to Ireland with no prospects of employment.

 

I personally have not tried to research Barry's British Army career, there must be a lot published, which given the nature of the subject may or may not be true.

Can we try to put together Tom Barry in the British Army in this thread, which I would like to be non political, and just concentrate on his life in the British Army. And to specifically avoid what did nor did not happen at Kilmichael

His service record is on Ancestry at click

And there is a Pension Card on Fold 3

From these we can see that he served in Mesopotamia and got a British Army pension which he started drawing from 1919

 

 

 

 

 

 

[kildaremark]

I did a piece on his military career in History Ireland a few years ago:

 

https://www.historyireland.com/20th-century-contemporary-history/tom-barry-guerrilla-days-in-iraq/

 

There is a photo of Bombardier Barry in the Cork Examiner (Also in the article) which strangely never made any of the biographies on him - I wonder why...?!!  I was interested to see that he was drawing a pension from the British army while fighting against them.

 

Extract from my piece:

 

Barry never attained the rank of sergeant, as claimed in some works. He was attested as a gunner and was appointed bombardier on 1 March 1916, but at his own request he reverted to the rank of gunner on 26 May 1916, remaining at this rank for the remainder of the war. Barry’s life in the British Army was not without incident. On 28 October 1915 he was reprimanded for ‘when on active service being absent from 6 a.m. parade until 6.20 a.m.’ and ‘not complying with an order’. On 27 May 1916 he was reprimanded again for ‘irregular conduct’. On 7 June 1918 he was guilty of being late for parade, stating a falsehood and disobedience of battery orders, enough to warrant ‘field punishment No. 2’ (being shackled for up to two hours a day). On 19 December 1918 he was given seven days’ field punishment No. 2 by Major Reynolds RFA for ‘creating a disturbance and improper reply to an NCO’. Nevertheless, when he was finally discharged from the army he was described as sober and ‘a good hardworking man’.

Barry’s career in the British Army ended on 7 April 1919. He was awarded a small pension for suffering malaria and DAH (Disordered Action of the Heart, a medical condition on his file). He was granted a pension for 66 weeks from 3 September 1919. His address at this time was given as Convent Hill, Bandon, Co. Cork. 

 

Here's the man himself like you've never seen him before.

 

 

 

 

Mark

Edited 3 June , 2020 by kildaremark

[corisande]

Thanks for that link Mark, that is a very good summary of Barry's British Army career. Given that History Ireland readers can have strong views what sort of reaction was there to it?

 

So you have answered my question in post #1 above, that this is the correct Tom Barry

 

Are there any War Diaries available for his Battery?

 

Can I also check with you the dates of the Cork Examiner Article, which you have as 10 Nov 1915 and him being a Bombardier, and the photo seems to show him with a stripe.

 

Do you know if the Cork Examiner had any grounds to suppose he had been offered a commission in the Munsters?

[depaor01]

I researched his British army service to illustrate in a blog how to research army records. I found most of the above - except the newspaper cutting.

I did ponder that he would have been entitled to wear a Victory,  British War Medal and War of Independence medal! I wonder what the order of wear would have been... 

Dave

[Ivor Anderson]

I'm always interested in the early life of prominent individuals. Apologies if this is not relevant!

Parents married: 6 November 1894, St Gabriel's, Aughrim Street, Dublin. Thomas Barry (Constable RIC, b. Milford, Cork) & Margaret O'Donovan.

                             Grandfather Edward Barry (farmer, deceased).

Born: Thomas Bernardine Barry, Killorglin, Co. Kerry 1 July 1897 - father a policeman in RIC.

1901 Census: 35 Langford, Killorglin, Kerry. Aged 3. 

1911 Census: 2 Fair Lane, Rosscarberry, Cork. Father (50), ex Constable RIC, shopkeeper. Mother Margaret Mary aged 36. Thomas (13) one of 9 children. (youngest born Cork, rest Kerry).

Edited 4 June , 2020 by Ivor Anderson

[Dai Bach y Sowldiwr]

Fascinating.

[FROGSMILE]

Very intriguing.  I can totally understand his bitterness at not being given the clerical posts that he sought.  The fact that his father was long serving RIC calls to thought what his father’s reaction may have been to the Kilmichael ambush.

Edited 3 June , 2020 by FROGSMILE

[kildaremark]

2 hours ago, corisande said:

Thanks for that link Mark, that is a very good summary of Barry's British Army career. Given that History Ireland readers can have strong views what sort of reaction was there to it?

 

So you have answered my question in post #1 above, that this is the correct Tom Barry

 

Are there any War Diaries available for his Battery?

 

Can I also check with you the dates of the Cork Examiner Article, which you have as 10 Nov 1915 and him being a Bombardier, and the photo seems to show him with a stripe.

 

Do you know if the Cork Examiner had any grounds to suppose he had been offered a commission in the Munsters?

History Ireland in 2007-08, from recollection had a long argument about Kilmichael / false surrenders  etc and so were a bit war weary on Barry so no one took the bait.

 

What interested me was how precious biographers didn’t seem toI interested in verifying his pre 1919 service. 
 

Slight inconsistency on date of newspaper and rank with what file states - I’ll look further into that.

 

I didn’t get the war diary at the fine as they were not digitised - probably still not the case for Mespot so artillery details courtesy of Farndale.

[kildaremark]

2 hours ago, depaor01 said:

I researched his British army service to illustrate in a blog how to research army records. I found most of the above - except the newspaper cutting.

I did ponder that he would have been entitled to wear a Victory,  British War Medal and War of Independence medal! I wonder what the order of wear would have been... 

Dave

..... and an Emergency Service medal for 1939-46 (WW2 to the rest of the World) even if he only served a few weeks

[ajsmith]

40 minutes ago, FROGSMILE said:

The fact that his father was long serving RIC calls to thought what his father’s reaction may have been to the Kilmichael ambush.

Slightly off topic I know but his Father's RIC record.

[FROGSMILE]

27 minutes ago, ajsmith said:

Slightly off topic I know but his Father's RIC record.

Interesting.  I wonder if it caused a family rift.  He spent his life serving that institution and might even have known some of the dead.

Edited 3 June , 2020 by FROGSMILE

[Wexflyer]

4 minutes ago, FROGSMILE said:

Interesting.  I wonder if it caused a family rift.  He spent his life serving that institution and might even have known some of the dead.

 

If you specifically mean Kilmichael, then no. The British contingent there were Auxiliaries (Auxies), former British Army officers, not part of the regular RIC. Misleadingly referred to by the British as "cadets".

 

In any case, more than a few serving RIC assisted the IRA.
 

[kildaremark]

 I have rechecked the Barry photograph and it is definitely in the Cork Examiner on Wednesday, 10 November 1915.

[Wexflyer]

.... Cork Examiner extract.

 

Which, as you already noted, is entirely inconsistent with the dates of rank in the army record. The Examiner article also differs on his age.

So, is it the correct record?  Who/when/where was the source of the claim that he was a sergeant?

Edited 4 June , 2020 by Wexflyer

[corisande]

41 minutes ago, kildaremark said:

the Barry photograph and it is definitely in the Cork Examiner on Wednesday, 10 November 1915.

 

OK , I have solved this one. It is all consistent between Cork Examiner story and his army record

 

He was in fact appointed Acting Bombardier. He was later (before Mar 1916) promoted Bombardier, but date cannot be read on service record. It is in a difficult to read section of his record, at the bottom of this attached extract

 

[corisande]

From the Irish Times article that I quote in post #1 above

 

However, 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.

 

Interestingly this is confirmed in his Service Record. I do not think there is any doubt that Barry either the Ministry of Labour clerical job in 1919 or the India job in Feb 1920

 

 

[kildaremark]

There is a chapter on Barry in "From The Glorious Madness: Tales of the Irish and the Great War" by Turtle Bunbury

There is also a quote, apparently from his loyalist neighbours in Bandon and referenced to Guerrilla Days in Ireland::

 

And what of Gunner Barry

A fearless son he is

We hope he will return

With the shining bronze V.C.

 

Says that Barry enlisted with a neighbour Frank MacMurrough. (I cant locate and obvious candidate for this especially RFA) According to Bunbury, Barry reverted from Bdr to Gnr "presumably in protest at the British response to the Rising". Not sure if you can jump to that conclusion from the record and whether Barry really did see a newspaper blowing across the desert about the rebellion in Dublin if we are to believe Guerrilla Days in Ireland.

 

Worth noting that Barry raised the Union Jack in Bandon on 11 November 1919...?!!  All points to someone who didnt change their outlook on life until 1920.

 

Edited 4 June , 2020 by kildaremark

[corisande]

Thanks for that quote above

 

It sort of illustrates why we need the War Diaries of the Battery - 14th Battery, 4th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery. Can anyone point to a link to their WD

 

His record shows him in Mespot from 21 Jan 1916, so it would seem unlikely (but not impossible) that it was in action the same day

[FROGSMILE]

10 hours ago, Wexflyer said:

 

If you specifically mean Kilmichael, then no. The British contingent there were Auxiliaries (Auxies), former British Army officers, not part of the regular RIC. Misleadingly referred to by the British as "cadets".

 

In any case, more than a few serving RIC assisted the IRA.
 

Thank you, that all makes sense, although I’ve never gained the sense from my reading that there were ‘more than a few’ RIC directly supporting the IRA, albeit I have read in the past of those incidences that you imply.  Overall my impression was that the majority of RIC and Dublin Met were true to their salt and served with conviction.

Edited 4 June , 2020 by FROGSMILE

[kildaremark]

British intelligence file on his army career - nothing new here except that they must have pulled his military file to have a look through it

 

[corisande]

2 minutes ago, kildaremark said:

nothing new here except that they must have pulled his military file to have a look through it

 

Yes, even down to the mole noted on his service file

 

I am not sure how "joined up" the British were. In Barry's case it does not seem to have impinged on his pension.

 

I have done a lot of work on Casements Irish Brigade, and again little action taken against them

[corisande]

Can @rflory help with whether 14th Battery, 4th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery War Diary in Mespot is available anywhere?

 

 

 

 

[Ivor Anderson]

As you already know, his service record says that Thomas Barry served with 14th Battery, 4th Brigade RFA. According to the LLT site the 4th Brigade comprised numbers 7, 14 and 66 batteries and was under the command of 7th (Meerut) Division of the Indian Army in France and Mesopotamia, before transferring in January 1916 to the 3rd (Lahore) Division in Mesopotamia and Palestine. The 4th Division War Diary on Ancestry ends in December 1915 with them sailing from Marseilles by 23 December 1915. 

Thomas' service record states that he served at 'home' until 20th January 1916 and then Mesopotamia.

Edited 4 June , 2020 by Ivor Anderson

[Dai Bach y Sowldiwr]

22 minutes ago, corisande said:

 

I am not sure how "joined up" the British were. In Barry's case it does not seem to have impinged on his pension.

 

I have done a lot of work on Casements Irish Brigade, and again little action taken against them

 

Perhaps it was easier to let sleeping dogs lie?

 

Wasn't the issue of Free State Pensions covering the War of Independence and the Civil War period extremely divisive for some time on the basis of who was and wasn't  eligible ?

[corisande]

4 minutes ago, Dai Bach y Sowldiwr said:

Wasn't the issue of Free State Pensions covering the War of Independence and the Civil War period extremely divisive for some time on the basis of who was and wasn't  eligible ?

 

I appreciate your point, but I would rather stick to Tom Barry and the British Army, otherwise we will go off at a tangent about a quite separate matter . It is always difficult to keep "Irish" threads on track