Irish Volunteer 1913-21
(1880-1921) Tadhg Barry
Officers of the Cork Brigade of the Irish Volunteers with Seán MacDiarmada (centre) at the Volunteers’ Hall, Sheares Street on 28 November 1915, the day of that year’s Manchester Martyrs’ commemoration. Tadhg Barry is second row, fourth from the right. (Cork Public Museum)
A group of officers of the Cork Brigade, Irish Volunteers, at the Freeman’s Journal offices in Dublin, 1915. Front row (left to right): Tadhg Barry, Tomás MacCurtain, Pat Higgins; back row (left to right): David Cotter, Seán Murphy, Donal Barrett, Terence MacSwiney, Paddy Trahey. (Cork Public Museum)
Following the passage of the Third Home Rule Bill through the House of Commons in 1912, Ulster unionists formed the Ulster Volunteer Force, an armed militia opposed to the implementation of Home Rule. In response, leading nationalists gathered in Dublin in November 1913 and founded the Irish Volunteers to ensure the enactment of Home Rule by force if necessary. Tadhg was a founding member of the Cork Corps of the Irish Volunteers, launched the following month in City Hall. By mid-1914, the Irish Volunteers claimed a national membership of 180,000 to 200,000 men, with John Redmond, the leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, as their leader. However, events in Europe would overtake the Volunteers.
On 4 August, Britain declared war on Germany after its invasion of Belgium, the beginning of its involvement in the First World War. Redmond urged Irishmen to join the British army to ensure that the British government would keep its promise on Home Rule. Over 150,000 Volunteers enlisted, leading to a split in the organisation. The majority formed the National Volunteers, who sailed to the Western Front, while a 10,000-man rump remained in Ireland under the original title of the Irish Volunteers. Tadhg backed the separatist, IRB-influenced minority. By the end of 1915, there were forty-six companies of the Irish Volunteers across Co. Cork, comprising 1,500 men. Of those, 150 were attached to the Cork City Battalion, whose headquarters was located at Volunteers’ Hall on Sheares Street. As an officer with D Company, Tadhg served on the executive committee of the Cork Brigade. He was also quartermaster of the first Volunteer training camp in Cork and played in the Volunteer Pipe Band. He was centrally involved in organising, drilling, training and procuring arms for a planned national rebellion. He helped to bring James Connolly to Cork in January 1916 to speak at an unofficial meeting of thirty or so Volunteers about urban guerrilla tactics. In the IRB’s plans for the Easter Rising, the Cork Brigade were to join with units from Kerry and Limerick along the Cork/Kerry border and receive their quota of weapons from the Aud, a German ship delivering arms. But the weapons, due to be unloaded at Fenit Pier on Easter Sunday, never arrived because the Aud was captured, and its cargo scuttled. As flag bearer, Tadhg led D Coy. as they marched from Crookstown to Macroom. However, amid confusing and contradictory orders from Dublin, the Cork Brigade was stood down; consequently, Cork did not participate in the Rising. The leaders of the Cork Volunteers occupied the hall on Sheares Street, while British soldiers occupied strategically important positions across the city, warning that any action by the Volunteers would lead to the shelling of the hall and other targets. Tadhg was a major figure in the negotiations between the Volunteers and the authorities, organised by Lord Mayor T.C. Butterfield and the Catholic bishop of Cork, Daniel Cohalan. Tadhg wanted to hold out and fight and was against MacCurtain and McSwiney’s surrender of the weapons to the lord mayor, from whom the British authorities later seized them.
Group of Irish Volunteers who attended the officers’ training course under J.J. O’Connell at the Volunteers’ Hall, Sheares Street, 22 January to 5 February 1916. Tadhg Barry is second row, second from right, with J.J. O’Connell to his left. (Cork Public Museum)
Looking back, Tadhg considered the surrender of arms in 1916 his greatest regret in life. Despite this setback, however, he remained a committed Volunteer. ‘Being a man of no physical courage, he was always contrived The Cork Volunteers’ Pipe Band, 1916. Tadhg Barry is front row, third from left, with ‘Darkie’ the Volunteers’ mascot otterhound, whom Tadhg christened their ‘canine comrade’, at his feet. (Cork Public Museum)
to keep out of the way when actual violence was attempted, although he was ever ready to plan and instigate it’, British intelligence claimed. How wrong they were! After his appointment as adjutant of C Coy., 1st Batt. of the 1st Cork Brigade in early 1920, Tadhg gathered intelligence and transported arms for the IRA under the cover of trade union work. He remained a proud member of the IRA until his death in November 1921.
A handbill for the meeting that established the Cork Corps of the Irish Volunteers on 14 December 1913, which Tadhg Barry attended. The Irish Volunteers was formed to defend the implementation of Home Rule in Ireland following the creation of the Ulster Volunteers. It provided the nucleus for the future Irish Republican Army. (Courtesy of Donal Ó Drisceoil)
Medal given to Tadhg Barry at the second annual Irish Volunteer convention, held in 1915 in the Abbey Theatre, Dublin. (Courtesy of Donal Ó Drisceoil)
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