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Life
1897-1980; b. West Cork; son of RIC officer; ed. National School; served in Mesopotamia [Iraq] in WWI; gassed in Basra; enrolled in business college; 3rd (West Cork) Brigade of IRA, 1919; commanded West Cork IRA unit, and later flying column; ambushes at Kilmichael and Crossbarry; opposed Treaty; arrested and imprisoned as a Republican, 1934; called for war against English, 1936; opposed IRA support for Republicans in Spanish Civil War; resigned from Army Council, 1937; quit IRA, 1940;
Barry sent an ironic telegram to Gen. Perceval upon the surrender of Singapore, Perceval having previously acted as ‘easily the most viciously anti-Irish of all serving British officers’; unsuccessful Dáil candidate in Cork, 1946; latterly employed by Cork Harbour Commissioners; m. Leslie Price, a prominent member of Cumann na mBan and Irish Red Cross; issued Guerrilla Days in Ireland (1949); also The Reality of the Anglo-Irish War, 1919-21 (1974), a pamph. contesting Liam Deasy’s version in Towards Ireland Free. DIH
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Works
Guerrilla Days in Ireland (1949; rep. Cork: Mercier 1955, 223pp., maps; rep. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan; NY: Roberts Rinehart 1995); with Piaras Beaslaí, Dan Breen, et al., The Reality of the Anglo-Irish War, 1919-21 (1974); The Red Path to Glory: With the IRA in the Fight for Freedom, 1919 to the Truce (Tralee: The Kerryman [n.d.] ), 238pp.
Also contrib. a preface to the 1st Edn. of Sean Cronin, Kevin Barry (1965).
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Criticism
Meda Ryan, Tom Barry (Cork: Mercier Press 2003), 350pp.
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