Tom Barry (13 page)

Dr Brian Murphy put the alleged report into a time frame. After the ambush (28 November 1920) Barry with the column was at the camp at Granure, south of Kilmichael when Charlie Hurley got ‘a verbal report' from Barry in the early morning hours. The next few days found the column trying to evade the enemy. Barry was in hospital from 3 to 28 December 1920. ‘In this context questions arise as to the need to make a report, and the opportunity to do so ... One cannot but feel that far more evidence is required before Barry's account [in his articles, book and broadcasts] may be dismissed as “lies and evasions”.'
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(In a lecture to UCG history students when mentioning the late arrival to the ambush site of the horse and side car, Tom Barry said, ‘there was a mistake in transmission. No orders or anything else were written at that time – in our brigade anyway.')
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‘IRA column men were well aware of the dangers of correspondence being captured: Tom Barry and Seán Moylan had a deep contempt for what they regarded as “pen pushers” in the command structure. Their emphasis was on action, not paperwork and with that went the conviction that they were fighting the war where it mattered.'
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If Tom Barry wrote this report for his superiors, he would surely have the number of men under his command correct. The first sentence in this report has the time of arrival at the ambush site incorrect (important to Barry, always a stickler for time); the second sentence has ‘32 men' instead of the correct 36 men. That sentence also mentions ‘100 rounds of ammunition per man'. With that amount Barry could have stormed Macroom Castle! In the early 1970s speaking to an audience in Cork he said, ‘We had only 30 to 36 rounds per man throughout the period, and this would last only one to one and half hours no matter how you would conserve it.'
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They travelled for five and a quarter hours not ‘four hours' as given in the third sentence.

The report (allegedly Barry's) states that the column ‘camped in that position until 4.15 p.m.' and ‘we started the return journey. About five minutes after the start we sighted two enemy lorries ... I decided to attack the lorries ... I divided the column into three sections …' (a) The facts are that the column remained in position. If the column had moved off, how could any commander get his men into the sections and a sub-section and be so well positioned to instantly take on the enemy? Why would Barry write that he had moved off when he hadn't, as in doing so, he would have been condemning himself by engaging the enemy from an unprepared position? Why suggest that ‘the ambush was an accident' so that he ‘could stay in charge', as Peter Hart has stated.
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If Barry meant to impress fellow officers, then from a guerrilla tactical viewpoint of preparedness, they would be foolish to leave him in charge. Furthermore, he couldn't have pretended that the ambush was fought in any way other than as it happened, because on the morning after the ambush, Charlie Hurley, brigade OC spoke to the men ‘with praise of the military spirit in which the whole operation was carried out ... He went round to each individual member of the column, and in his own humble, quiet way encouraged him, thanked him for the honour he had brought to the brigade.'
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Moreover, all other accounts of the ambush throughout the years, regardless of the teller, state that the men were in
situ
and followed Barry's action orders. Despite this, Peter Hart in a letter to the
Irish Times
has endeavoured to justify why Barry ‘would lie about whether or not the ambush was planned … I believe Barry's omission and lies form a coherent pattern in that they eliminate the controversial aspects of the event. He didn't have authority to launch a risky ambush outside brigade boundaries, and he hadn't told his superiors, so he claimed it was an accident.'
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However, Liam Deasy and Charlie Hurley had visited the training camp. According to Liam Deasy, they were aware that ‘Tom Barry's scheme to ambush the Auxiliaries who were making incursions into our brigade area from Macroom had been maturing.'
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Though Cork No. 1 Brigade was planning ‘a big scheme' attack on the Macroom Auxiliaries, they were ‘happy' with Barry's coup.
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(b) There is no mention in the ‘Rebel Commandant's report' of the sub-section nor the manned command post, each an important device by Barry. Why would Barry omit this important tactic, which was far more important than describing the terrain?

(c) The ambush lasted approximately twenty minutes. This alleged report has the ambush starting around the time the engagement was over. Barry would have got the time correct. (‘One of Barry's mannerisms was that he constantly kept his eye on the time'.)
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Some of the terminology in this report (allegedly Barry's) has all the aspects of one written from the Auxiliary barrack viewpoint:

(a) ‘We camped in that position.' They didn't camp. They got into ambush positions, which is what Barry would have said.

(b) ‘ ... and then decided that as the enemy searches were completed.' Barry would have used the words ‘raids' or ‘rampages.' The barrack would have used ‘searches'. In one British report they were going ‘in search of a wanted man'. Barry was aware from previous experience that there was no completion to their ‘raids'. He later told Nollaig Ó Gadhra, ‘about 4 o'clock I had my mind made up they weren't coming, and I decided I would give them another ten minutes. Surely at five past four they sailed into us!'
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(c) ‘One wounded and escaped and is now missing.' Barry's men told him that one escaped, how did he know whether or not he was ‘now missing'? In Macroom Castle they knew he was ‘now missing'! In their official report they listed Cadet Guthrie as ‘missing'.

(d) ‘Sixteen of the enemy … being killed', this report states. If Barry counted properly there were seventeen on the road – all, he believed, dead. In the British report which follows Barry's alleged report (in this typewritten document) it states that ‘of the party of eighteen, sixteen were found lying dead on the spot one had disappeared' and ‘one left for dead'.
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The first official report has sixteen dead, ‘one wounded', and ‘one missing'. Two subsequent official reports contain ‘sixteen members of the Macroom Auxiliary Police … only one of the sixteen escaped … missing.'
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(e) In a short report on an ambush, would Barry write, ‘the action was carried out successfully' against ‘the Auxiliary Police from Macroom Castle' (giving them their full title)?

(f) This report lists ‘the captures'. There is a discrepancy between this list and what Barry in later years wrote that they captured. The obvious explanation being that the Castle Auxiliaries knew what went out in the tenders and did not return – hence accuracy from their viewpoint when compiling the ‘Commandant's report'. However, the Mills bomb thrown by Barry must have destroyed some arms and ammunition, also Barry and command post men, used captured ammunition in the conclusion of the fight, as he has stated. Furthermore, listed among ‘the captures' on the ‘Rebel Commandant's report' are ‘two lorries, which were subsequently burnt.' It is unlikely that Barry would list the lorries as ‘captures' when, elsewhere he has stated, ‘we burned the lorries', rather than ‘were subsequently burnt'. Moreover, the Castle Auxiliaries saw fit not to mention the loss of important documentation. In all the records of the Kilmichael ‘captures' Barry mentions ‘most important of all' was the sandbag full of Auxies' papers and notebooks' among the ‘captured' items.

(g) The last sentence of this report says: ‘our casualties were: One killed, and two who have subsequently died of wounds.' It was the other way round. Two were killed and one died of wounds. This, and the P.S. are the most telling sentences in the report and it demonstrates that Tom Barry was not the author.

(h) The ‘Rebel Commandant's' P. S. blames the ‘casualties to the fact that these three men (who were part of No. 2 section) were too anxious to get into close quarters with the enemy … they discarded their cover, and … P. Deasy was killed [
note the word ‘killed'
] by a revolver bullet from one of the enemy whom he thought dead.' This conveys the impression that Deasy got ‘into close quarters' on the road. None of No. 2 section went on the road during the ambush. These men did not move closer to the enemy, they remained in their positions, but the few stood up during the ‘surrender' call when firing ceased.
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(i) If Barry wrote that report for Liam Deasy and Charlie Hurley would he say ‘They were our best men …' Barry would have to command the remaining men in the continuing conflict. But most important, would he single out P. Deasy (he has called him Pat Deasy elsewhere) and say he was killed in the ambush when he wasn't? Barry knew he was gravely injured. Would Barry not mention the names of the two men (section commander – Michael McCarthy and Jim O'Sullivan), who were killed outright and to whom he had asked the column to ‘present arms'? Why would he deliberately write that these were the ‘two who have subsequently died of wounds'? Pat Deasy fatally wounded, died around 10 p.m. in Buttimer's, some distance away. Seán Falvey, a dispatch scout, took the news to Barry in Granure that night. (Note: the official British report also mentions P. Deasy not Pat Deasy.)

Of particular note is the omission from the report of Barry standing on the road to confront the lorries. Barry was unlikely to forget it, so if he wrote this report he would surely have mentioned the daring ploy that marked the opening of the attack.

Peter Hart states that this ‘authentic captured document seems unquestionable', because it ‘contains details such as the division of the column into three sections and their deployment, the length of the march to Kilmichael, the time the ambush took place, and the fact that two of the three IRA casualties died of wounds.'
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Yet, as has been analysed, the sub-sections, the opening time, and in particular the incorrect statement on deaths, in the ‘Commandant's report' contrast greatly from the available evidence. Therefore, a definite question mark must be placed over the authenticity of the document.
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It is significant that this ‘Rebel Commandant's report' does not tally with the British official version which has a ‘telling' sentence. The official British report describes the hacking of bodies with axes and brutal massacre, then states: ‘The Commandant of the Brigade Flying Column omitted all mention of these incidents from his report.' Logic dictates he would omit it in a report for fellow officers. If, as seems likely, they forged the ‘Rebel Commandant's report', then the omission of the savagery from it adds credibility to the document. Furthermore, it aids their official version. Significant also is the statement in the alleged Barry's Report that the column had ‘started their return journey' when they ‘sighted two enemy lorries', then ‘divided the column into three sections' and attacked the enemy.

Caught unawares, they came at the patrol with what they describe in their own propaganda introduction as the ‘cold-blooded brutality' of a ‘Murder Gang' without discipline. Moreover, one official military report of the event states: ‘This atrocity emphasised the lawless state of Co. Cork and the surrounding counties, and the inadequacy of the existing powers to deal with the situation there.'
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‘It was as a bloodthirsty commander that the British propagandists depicted me in the aftermath of Kilmichael,' Tom Barry wrote, ‘and it was as monsters that my men of the column and I, who had fought at Kilmichael, were presented. The British, of course, did not make the slightest reference to the false surrender of the Auxiliaries.'
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The British cabinet accepted the ambush as ‘a military operation'. Lloyd George sent over Sir Hamar Greenwood, chief secretary for Ireland. It ‘seemed to him', to Bonar Law and to Tom Jones that this ambush was ‘of a different character from the preceding operations. The others were assassinations. This last was a military operation,' Tom Jones records, ‘and there was a good deal to be said for declaring a state of siege or promulgating martial law in that corner of Ireland.'
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Of significant importance is the testimony of Brigadier General Crozier, commander of the Auxiliaries from 1919 to 1920. He came to Ireland (having resigned) ‘as a civilian, at the request of Sir Hamar Greenwood to give evidence' on the Kilmichael ambush. In his ‘Unpublished Memoirs' he wrote:

I took particular care to enquire into this story of mutilation, as it appeared to me to be quite unlike the normal or abnormal act of Irishmen. The correct story I found to be as follows: The lorries were held up by land mines and the leading lorry was partly destroyed. The men were called upon to surrender and did so throwing up their hands and grounding their rifles. Each policeman carried a revolver in addition to a rifle. One policeman shot a Sinn Féiner at close quarters with his revolver after he had grounded his rifle and put his hands up. A hand-to-hand combat of the fiercest kind ensued, the butts of rifles, revolvers, crowbars being used, hence the battered condition of the police. When it is intended to kill a man with a butt-end there is no hitting him in the legs.
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This account clarifies that the ‘false surrender' story was in circulation in the area shortly after the ambush, and was not fabricated by Tom Barry or anybody else later.

Crozier said that ‘the Auxiliary police were soldiers in disguise under no army and no R.I.C. code.' His endorsement is weighty. He resigned from his position ‘because the combat was being carried out on foul lines, by selected and foul men, for a grossly foul purpose, based on the most satanic of all rules that “the end justifies the means”.'
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