Tom Barry (58 page)

It was a sad split after an era of togetherness. Tom Barry's batman and friend, Christy Barrett, said that ‘the general was very upset. Liam Deasy had been his friend all his life.' They had met at funerals, commemorations and had got together on occasions, so ‘he couldn't understand' why the accounts of so many of the engagements in
Towards Ireland Free
differed from other published accounts.
[35]

The hero who lives long loses his aura; his moment passes and he is seen as an ordinary man. Only the hero who dies young remains, in memory and writing, forever young. Tom Barry, the hero, though still youthful in appearance, was growing old.

During the latter part of his life he became difficult, especially at commemoration committee meetings, often portraying a stubborn almost intolerant attitude. There was one particular night in Dunmanway where the committee met to discuss events for the forthcoming Kilmichael ceremonies. For some reason an argument arose as to whether the horse and side car with the Bantry Volunteers came up the road or down the road towards the ambuscade (they could have come from either the Dunmanway or Macroom direction from Bantry). Several of those present mention that night as the night Barry got into a tantrum and in fact appeared to be contradicting himself. It almost created pandemonium, and indeed it was not easy to call Barry to order and ask him to wait until the meeting was over.

He also developed a habit of trying to insist on doing everything the way he wanted it done. ‘By God, he had aggression; even in his later life he was overflowing with it. He must have been some man to meet at the wrong side of a gun during those early days', was how one observer described him.

He attended the meetings in Cork for the organisation of a commemoration ceremony in Cobh, and everything was arranged for two o'clock. However, Barry arrived at one o'clock on the Sunday with a number of men, went to the grave and carried out the ceremony. The local men assembled at two o'clock with all other Old IRA men; when they marched to the island they discovered that a ceremony with the laying of a wreath had already been performed. ‘It was disappointing,' said an IRA veteran.
[36]

Barry had said, when he spoke at the dedication of the monuments at Kilmichael and Crossbarry, that he would not speak again on a public platform (although he later did), but each year out of courtesy the commemoration committee would write and invite all survivors. Invariably Barry would write back, thanking them and stating that he did not attend these events any more and enclosing a subscription for the wreath.

In 1979 the committee decided that, as his wife was not well, they would not trouble him by writing because he would have to write back with the usual explanation. When the group, assembled for the anniversary commemoration at Kilmichael, they found a wreath had already been placed. Barry with a few friends had come down the previous day, Saturday, and placed a wreath ‘just because he wasn't asked, and we had been asking him over the past years and he wouldn't come!'
[37]

Usually when he went to West Cork to attend funerals and meet old friends he would have an enjoyable day. Sometimes, though, he might take a drop ‘over and above' and could be a little troublesome, but usually he only allowed himself to become merry. Though without the gift of a singing voice, he would, after a few drinks, start:

Down by the Glenside I met an old woman . . .

I listened a while to the song she was singing,

Glory oh, Glory oh, to the Bold Fenian men.

And he would finish in a raised voice:

Sure I went on my way thanking God that I met her…

We may have good men today, but we'll never have better,

Glory oh, Glory oh, to the Bold Fenian men.
[38]

While in West Cork usually he'd call into Kathy Hayes' pub if in the Rosscarbery area, and with former comrades talk about old times and historical events, including actions and ambushes.

One night, returning with a friend from Rosscarbery, some argument arose between them; Barry, who could be troublesome when he had drink taken, said, ‘Get out and I'll fight you!'

The driver stopped. Barry got out and began to peel off his coat and the car drove off.

‘I knew all these roads,' he said. ‘I walked every one of them.' He was out near Coppeen and went to someone's house and asked to be driven back to Cork.

He was taken to the Grocer's club where he knew his companion would be. Barry went in and tapped his companion on the shoulder. When he stood up, Barry drew back his fist, floored him, and walked out. Barry, still fit and dapper, was over seventy years old at the time.

In a pub one night a group was chatting and a slight argument arose; one of the company said to Barry, ‘What would you know about it anyway, you're only a Kerry man!

‘Stand up, a Kerryman I'm not!' said Barry raising his fist and hitting his companion full force.

Another night he was coming out of a pub in Cork with a companion from the First World War and the two had an argument. ‘As one British soldier to another ... his comrade began. Barry stood for a moment, drew his fist on the plate glass window and smashed it.

Those who knew him well accepted his faults and spoke of him as a true and dear friend.
[39]

In the 1970s he attended a big rally in Cork where he spoke on the Price sisters who were on hunger strike in Britain. In 1980 at Crossbarry, before allowing the IRA veterans to disperse, he concluded, ‘and in addition today, I don't want you to fall out until the same prayers are said for the men who are being crucified in H-Block, Long Kesh. I want you to say the prayers for them, too, to show our unity with these men, many of whom are completely innocent and are rail-roaded by the same British that killed these men whom we are commemorating.'
[40]

Despite all his aggression, he maintained courtesy when the occasion called for it. When Sighle Humphreys sent him a document for approval and apologised for inconvenience, he wrote, ‘Don't worry about tormenting me … I like you too much for that'. Unable to go to a meeting in Dublin as Leslie was ill, he told Sighle, ‘I hate to refuse you anything Sighle, but now being in my eightieth year I dislike even seeing my name in print. When I was young and active in the Republican movement, I always felt that anyone over fifty years of age should have stepped down and leave it to the younger people. I have not changed my mind since.' He told her to tell the others that he was unable to attend the meeting ‘for domestic and personal reasons.'

‘All attempts in the past – and they have been legion – to the course of action' for a United Ireland ‘have failed. I cannot see any hope either for this one,' he wrote. ‘I have my own opinion as to how this struggle will end and my own views as to the strategy and tactics being adopted by Republicans, but I will not write them down. However I wish you well in your efforts …'
[41]

When ‘the troubles' were at their height in the north of Ireland and prisoners went on hunger-strike to seek political status, Sighle Humphreys sent a communication to Barry asking that his name be added to a support group. ‘A very long – 25 minutes phone call' to Tom elicited a negative response, Sighle wrote. ‘He said that the men who were carrying out the recent killing – especially that last shooting of [there is a blank] could not be called IRA they were just independent groups working on their own. He said that he had recently been invited to Derry and Belfast but had refused both invitations. Since the hunger-strike began he had been approached to use his influence in certain quarters but had also refused and told whoever had approached him that he should realise that the organisation was losing support from all quarters and that they had only themselves to blame.'
[42]

A severe blow came to Leslie in the mid 1970s. When the coalition government was in power she was telephoned and told, without ceremony, that she was not being re-appointed to the chairmanship of the Red Cross. Tom was hurt because neither of them ever became involved in party politics. Leslie had been decorated by ‘the German, Italian and Netherlands governments for her outstanding service to the Red Cross Society, and in 1978 received the international committee's highest award, the Henri Dunant Medal.'
[43]

In the autumn of his life he and his wife Leslie would take long walks down the quays and all along the Mardyke, and would often sit on a bench beside the flowers and trees, pleasantly chatting to one another. Then one day fate intervened and divided the couple. On 20 August 1975 – following the announcement of the death of De Valera – Leslie, while on the telephone, collapsed with a stroke and was taken to St Finbarr's Hospital. Though she was extremely low for some time, she gradually regained her senses but remained paralysed from the waist down.

He was positively bitter ‘with God for being so cruel'‚ his friends recall. It took him some time to accept the fact that she would never completely recover.

Each day found him visiting her, morning and evening, and as she grew a little better, her senses being restored somewhat, their meetings gave him more pleasure; the two would chat about old times, discussing past events. Christy Barrett, who often travelled by bus with him, recalls him reading passages from the newspaper to her.

‘You could set your watch at eleven o' clock every morning as he passed the City Hall on his way to the hospital. And like a perfect gentlemen he would always raise his hat in greeting if there was a woman present.'
[44]

Mick McCarthy believes that his attention to his wife during the last years of his life ‘showed his humanity as a dedicated husband; visiting her twice and sometimes three times a day, often under adverse conditions, is a great credit to him. They were happy together.'
[45]

In a sad touching letter to his friend Sighle Humphreys he wrote:

Well Sighle, I told a priest friend of ours that I had become a Roman Catholic Atheist. For the first 3½ months of her illness I went to daily Mass and Communion for her. But her pain and suffering increased and all the Mass cards and prayers of others did not seem to matter a damn. If God was the merciful and just God I thought he was in my youth and if he had any interest in us mortals, Leslie has seen none of it.

Everybody dies and I would have accepted her death without bitterness if she had been spared all the pain and suffering of the past 9½ months. But why was she singled out when I know hundreds of ruffians, who broke every commandment and rule of decency, pass away peacefully in their sleep or after a few days illness. Leslie will never know I feel like this; so I go into Mass every Sunday.

Your friend,

Tom.
[46]

In another heart-rending letter, over a year later to Donncha Ó Dulaing he wrote:

The Barrys have struck a very bad patch, hence delay in reply. Leslie Mary lies paralysed for almost two and half years in St Finbarr's Hospital. During that period I also have had a spell in the cardiac unit … an operation … left me weak, I seem to be pulling back again. I visit Leslie Mary daily, by bus. and hope to return to twice daily visits. I'm not complaining, as this is life and to hell with death!
[47]

Christy Barrett, his helper-friend of many years, remained in Barry's flat, cooking the meals, cleaning, washing, and generally fulfilling the role of companion.

At times Tom sat on a bench in the Mardyke, where often he had sat with Leslie Mary; or he would tend to the flowerbed that surrounded the bust of Michael Collins – his former comrade and later adversary in war.

As the evening shadows were about to descend on Cork city he could often be seen sitting on a bench on the quay, alone, gazing across the River Lee with the spires of St Mary's church beyond and the Shandon Bells in the distance.

Notes