Ballykinlar 1921
(1880-1921) Tadhg Barry
Tadhg’s active role on Cork Corporation ended on 31 January 1921, exactly a year and a day after he had taken his seat. That afternoon, city councillors gathered in Cork Courthouse (the City Hall had been destroyed during the Burning of Cork) to re-elect Donal O’Callaghan as Lord Mayor (O’Callaghan had occupied the role since November following Terence McSwiney’s hunger strike). During the session, the RIC and the Black and Tans stormed the chamber and arrested Tadhg and eight other Sinn Féin councillors. They were bundled into lorries and taken to Victoria Barracks, where they were held until their transfer to Cork County Gaol two days later. They were subsequently sent to Spike Island prison before being sent, via Belfast, to Ballykinlar internment camp on the coast of south Co. Down. The prisoners had to walk three miles of the journey from the train station in Belfast handcuffed and carrying their own belongings. Tadhg was very weak – his already poor health worsened by the appalling conditions endured since his arrest. He even felt the need to dump his baggage along the way to complete the journey. But complete it he did, and he joined 1,000 other internees at Ballykinlar. He was placed in the newly build Camp No. 2, where he would spend the last nine months of his life.
The internees were treated as POWs at Ballykinlar and were given a level of autonomy unthinkable in Cork Gaol. They built what Tadhg called ‘our little communistic state’, complete with an education, judicial and police system; a currency; retail outlets; music classes; drama groups; and sports games (mainly GAA but also athletics, boxing, wrestling and chess). Tadhg even revived ‘An Ciotóg’ for a camp newspaper that was set up. Devoutly religious, Tadhg was active in the ‘altar committee’ that turned one of the huts into a chapel and helped to maintain it thereafter.
Tadhg was universally popular in the camp, even among those who did not share his socialist views. He educated camp members on the issues facing the Irish labour movement and the social problems an independent Ireland would have to tackle. He gave lectures on topics such as ‘Slavery: Ancient and Modern’, ‘Irish Labour’ and ‘Rural Labour Problems’, and even organised the camp’s trade unionists into the ‘Ballykinlar Trades Council.’ On May Day 1921, Tadhg organised a full day of activities from morning until evening – the pinnacle of camp socialism at Ballykinlar. Leaving a mass for James Connolly and the ‘workers who died for Irish freedom’, the internees observed a British soldier removing a red flag from one of the huts. It was immediately replaced by another, a pattern replicated across the camp. The authorities threatened to ban the evening’s entertainment if the red flags were not removed, but the prisoners refused and utilised every piece of red cloth available for flags and badges! As Tadhg himself put it, they quite literally showed ‘red rags to John Bull for the rest of the day!’
But the day was very much an exception to the rule. For the rest of the year, life at the camp was harsh. In June 1921, Tadhg wrote to Liam de Róiste and told him of how a fellow inmate had died at the camp. ‘The poor fellow must have suffered’ because he had ‘bed sores’ all over his body, which showed the ‘nature of the nursing to be had here.’ Tadhg also pointed out the chronic lack of necessities at the camp, reporting that ‘our principal trouble here is lack of water. I have not had a bath for a fortnight, and we have often to wait for meals until water is procured.’ But the Anglo- Irish Truce of 11 July gave Tadhg and the other prisoners hope of better times ahead.
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