Kevin Gerard Barry (20 January 1902 – 1 November 1920) was an Irish Republican Army (IRA) soldier and medical student who was executed by the British Government during the Irish War of Independence. He was sentenced to death for his part in an attack upon a British Army supply lorry which resulted in the death of a British soldier.
His execution inflamed nationalist public opinion in Ireland, largely because of his age. The timing of the execution, only seven days after the death by hunger strike of Terence MacSwiney, the republican Lord Mayor of Cork, brought public opinion to a fever-pitch. His pending death sentence attracted international attention, and attempts were made by U.S. and Vatican officials to secure a reprieve. His execution and MacSwiney's death precipitated an escalation in violence as the Irish War of Independence entered its bloodiest phase, and Barry became an Irish republican martyr.
Kevin Gerard Barry was born on 20 January 1902, at 8 Fleet Street, Dublin, to Thomas and Mary (née Dowling) Barry. The fourth of seven children, two boys and five girls, Kevin was baptised in St Andrew's Church, Westland Row. His father, Thomas Barry Sr., ran a prosperous dairy business in Dublin based at Fleet Street and supported by the output of the family's farm at Tombeagh, Hacketstown, County Carlow. Barry Sr. died of heart disease on 8 February 1908, at the age of 56, when Kevin was six years old.
Barry's mother, the former Mary Dowling, came from Drumguin, County Carlow, and, upon the death of her husband, moved the family to the farm at Tombeagh while retaining the family's townhouse on Fleet Street. As a child he went to the National School in Rathvilly. In 1915 he was sent to live in Dublin and attended the O'Connell Schools for three months, before enrolling in the Preparatory Grade at St Mary's College, Rathmines, in September 1915. He remained at that school until 31 May 1916 when it was closed by its clerical sponsors.
During this period he was undoubtedly affected by the events in April of the Easter Rising. In the same period at St. Mary's, he also attended a commemoration concert for the Manchester Martyrs, who were hanged in England in 1867. These events served to incite his nascent nationalism to the extent that he expressed his desire to join Constance Markievicz's Fianna Éireann. His family attempted to dissuade him, but one sister later expressed the belief that he joined. Barry's sister Kathleen was a committed Irish Republican and member of the women's paramilitary organisation Cumann na mBan. In 1922 she was sent to the US on a fund-raising tour. She took part in the Irish Civil War and was imprisoned by Irish Free State forces in Cork where she went on hunger strike.
With the closure of St Mary's College, Barry transferred to Belvedere College, a Jesuit school in Dublin. He was a substitute on the championship Junior Rugby Cup team and earned a place on the senior team. In 1918 he became secretary of the school hurling club which had just been formed, and was one of their most enthusiastic players.
In 1919, his final year at Belvedere, Barry wrote an essay supporting the Dublin Lockout as a "forcible demonstration of the power of Labour and had an experience also of the power of agitation in the person of that marvellous leader James Larkin and his able lieutenant, Commandant James Connolly". This piece earned him only sixty points out of a possible 100. Generally speaking, Barry's performance as a student was erratic. In his first and third years at Belvedere, he won no honours, although he did earn honours in five subjects in his middle year. He must have learned more than his grades reflected. After graduation, he won a merit-based scholarship given annually by Dublin Corporation, which allowed him to become a student of medicine at University College Dublin (UCD).
Barry entered UCD as a first-year medical student in October 1919 and remained a student for the next year. His closest friend at UCD was Gerry MacAleer, from Dungannon, whom he had first met in Belvedere. Another friend at UCD was Frank Flood, whom he had met at the O'Connell Schools, and was now an engineering student at the university.
Barry's medical studies competed with other attractions, including dancing, drinking, gambling, and cinema. As a result, he only managed to attend about three-quarters of his medical school lectures. Not least of his distractions was his membership in the Irish Volunteers. Barry was one of several UCD medical students involved in the Volunteers, including Tom Kissane, Liam Grimley and Mick Robinson, all of whom were involved with Barry in the Monk's Bakery ambush, along with Frank Flood. Kissane, Grimley, Robinson and Flood all survived the ambush unscathed. Flood was later captured and executed by the British in 1921.
Despite Barry's extensive involvement in Volunteer actions, he appears to have been very discreet. Although Barry was a member of the Volunteers for three of the four years of their friendship, his closest friend, Gerry McAleer, was unaware of this aspect of his life.
In October 1917, during his second year at Belvedere, aged 15, he joined Company C, 1st Battalion of the Dublin Brigade of the Irish Volunteers. When Company C was later reorganized he was reassigned to the newly formed Company H, under the command of Captain Seamus Kavanagh. He was attached to Company C, of the 3rd Battalion of the Carlow Brigade during his vacations from school in Tombeagh.
The following year, at age 16, he was introduced by Seán O'Neill and Bob O'Flanagan to the Clarke Luby Club of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB). At some point in time, he was sworn as a member of this secret society which was led by Michael Collins. Barry's activities in Dublin focused on training and operations to acquire weapons and ammunition. Training sites were regularly shifted to avoid discovery, but the extent of training that Barry received is questionable.
Although he served in the Volunteers for almost three years, his operational experience prior to the Monk's Bakery ambush was somewhat limited. For the most part, Volunteers in Dublin did little other than training and few saw action or heard shots fired in anger. He took part in a number of small operations including a raid on the Shamrock Works for weapons intended for the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), and a raid on Mark's of Capel Street, looking for ammunition and explosives.
Barry's one significant action prior to Monk's Bakery was the raid for weapons on a military outpost at King's Inn on Constitution Hill. The Dublin Brigade had carefully reconnoitred the site and developed an operations plan to be completed within seven minutes. On 1 June 1920, a hand-picked team from the Dublin Brigade's three battalions attacked the site taking the 25 soldiers by surprise and seizing the available weapons. Within only six minutes the raiders had secured rifles, light machine guns, and large quantities of ammunition, and had departed the site with no casualties.
In mid-September 1920, Captain Seamus Kavanagh, Commander of H Company of the Dublin Brigade, was approached by James Douglas of C Company. Douglas informed him that he and John Joe Carroll of H Company had noticed that a British army lorry guarded by an armed party of soldiers made twice weekly trips to Monk's Bakery at 79-80 Church Street to obtain bread. They had observed that the lorry came every Monday and Thursday between 11:00 and 11:15 a.m.. The party usually consisted of an officer and a driver in the cab with a non-commissioned officer and eight privates in the rear. The officer and one soldier would enter the bakery to purchase bread. Four or five soldiers would stay with the lorry without taking any particular security measures while the others would cross the street to purchase cigarettes or sweets. Within ten to fifteen minutes the bread would be loaded and the lorry would depart.
On 13 September, Captain Kavanagh went to Church Street to confirm the information and reconnoitre the area. He observed the lorry arrive and confirmed the particulars Douglas had related. After the soldiers departed he went into the bakery and talked with J.J. Moore, the foreman carpenter, whom Kavanagh knew and who was sympathetic to the Volunteers. Moore also validated the conclusions of Douglas and Carroll and stated that the party did not exceed 11 men. Moore then showed Kavanagh around the bakery so that the latter could develop a plan for an ambush including planned dispositions of his men. He was also shown a passage from the bakery yard leading into a shop in North King Street which would provide a useful line of retreat for any men posted in the yard.