Richard Barrett | |
|---|---|
.png) Barrett c. 1913 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1889-12-17)17 December 1889 Knockacullen (Hollyhill),County Cork, Ireland |
| Died | 8 December 1922(1922-12-08) (aged 32) Mountjoy Prison, Dublin, Ireland |
| Alma mater | De La Salle College Waterford |
Richard Barrett (17 December 1889 – 8 December 1922), commonly calledDick Barrett, was a prominentIrish Republican Army officer who fought in theWar of Independence and on the Anti-Treaty side in theIrish Civil War. He was assistant quartermaster-general of the IRA with the rank of commandant. During the Civil War he was captured by Free State forces at the Four Courts on 30 June 1922 and later executed unlawfully[1] on 8 December 1922.
Barrett's execution by the Free State has been described as "murder" by IrishTaoiseach and head ofFianna Fáil partyMicheál Martin.[2] In 2011, then TaoiseachLeo Varadkar said "People who were murdered or executed without trial by the Cumann na nGaedheal Government were murdered. It was an atrocity and those people killed without a trial by the first government were murdered."[3]
Richard Barrett was born 17 December 1889 in Knockacullen (Hollyhill),Ballineen,County Cork, son of Richard Barrett, farmer, and Ellen Barrett (née Henigan). Educated at Knocks and Knockskagh national schools, he entered theDe La Salle College,Waterford, where he trained to be a teacher.[4] Obtaining a first-class diploma, he first taught atBallinamult,County Tipperary but then returned to Cork in early 1914 to take up a position at the Upton industrial school. Within months he was appointed principal ofGurrane National School. Devoted to the Irish language and honorary secretary of Knockavilla GAA club, Barrett did much to popularise both movements in the southern and western districts of Cork. He appears to have been a member of the Cork Young Ireland Society.[5]
From 1917, inspired by the Easter rising, Barrett took a prominent part in the organisation and operation of theIrish Volunteers andIRB. By this time he was also involved withSinn Féin, in which role he attended the ard-fheis at the Mansion House in October 1917 and the convention of the Irish Volunteers at Croke Park immediately afterwards. What follows is a description of the convention byRichard Walsh:[6]
"The Volunteer Convention was held in a building in Croke Park, known as the Pavilion, (the) end portion of this building was filled with hay. The large number of delegates seated themselves where convenient on portions of an open stand and around on the hay. Planks and forms were also used for seats. At the end of the building where the hay was a group of men assembled, of whom it could be said they were the men of destiny in the Ireland of our time. The Chairman of the Convention was Eamon de Valera. Behind him, lying on the pile of hay, were Michael Collins, Cathal Brugha, Austin Stack, Dermot Lynch, Eamon Duggan, Dermot O'Hegarty, Michael Staines, Liam Lynch of Cork, Terence McSwiney of Cork, Ernest Blythe, Joe McKelvey, Dick Barrett, Frank Barrett of Clare, Mick Brennan and one of his brothers of Clare, Sean MacEntee of Belfast, James Keaveney, Sligo, Alec McCabe of Sligo, Dory O'Connor, Dick McKee, Oscar Traynor, William M. O'Reilly and some of the McQuills of Dundalk, Brian O'Higgins, Laurence O'Toole, etc. All the prominent men in the republican physical force movement of that time were present."
Through planning and participating in raids and gun-running episodes, Barrett came into close contact with manyGHQ staff during theWar of Independence, thereby ensuring his own rapid promotion.[7] Dick Barrett was an activeIRA brigade staff officer and occasionally acted as commandant of the West Cork III Brigade. He also organised fundraising activities for the purchase of weapons and for comrades on the run. In July 1920, following the arrest of the Cork III Brigade commander Tom Hales and quartermaster Pat Harte, Barrett was appointed its quartermaster.[8] He was arrested on 22 March 1921[9] and imprisoned in Cork jail, later being sent toSpike Island, County Cork.[10]
As one of the senior officers held in Spike Island, Barrett was involved in many of the incidents that occurred during his time there. After thetruce was declared on 11 July 1921, some prisoners went on hunger strike but Barrett called it off after a number of days on instructions from outside[11] as a decision had been made that able-bodied men were more important to the cause.
In November, he escaped by row boat alongsideMoss (Maurice) Twomey, Henry O'Mahoney, Tom Crofts, Bill Quirke, Dick Eddy and Paddy Buckley.
Following the War of Independence, Barrett supported theAnti-Treaty IRA's refusal to submit to the authority of theDáil (civil government of the Irish Republic declared in 1919). He was opposed to theAnglo-Irish Treaty and called for the total elimination of English influence in Ireland. In April 1922, Barrett was one of some 200 hardline anti-treaty men who took over theFour Courts building in the centre ofDublin in defiance of the new Irish government. They wanted to provoke British troops, who were still in the country, into attacking them.[citation needed] They hoped this would restart the war with Britain and reunite the IRA against their common enemy. However, on 28 June 1922, after the Four Courts garrison had kidnapped J.J. O'Connell, a general in the newFree State Army, Collins' soldiers shelled the Four Courts and sparked off what became known as theBattle of Dublin. The garrison surrendered following two days of fighting. Barrett, the assistant quartermaster-general,[12] was arrested and held with most of his comrades inMountjoy Gaol. This incident marked the official outbreak of theIrish Civil War, as fighting escalated around the country between pro- and anti-treaty factions.
After the death ofMichael Collins in an ambush, a period of tit-for-tat revenge killings ensued. The government implemented martial law and enacted the necessary legislation to set up military courts. In November, the government began to execute Anti-Treaty prisoners, includingErskine Childers. In response, Liam Lynch, the Anti-Treaty Chief of Staff, gave an order that any member of the Dáil who had voted for the 'murder legislation' was to be shot on sight.
On 7 December 1922,TDSeán Hales was killed by anti-Treaty IRA men as he left theDáil. Another TDPádraic Ó Máille was also shot and badly wounded in the incident. An emergency cabinet meeting was allegedly[who?] held the next day to discuss the assassination of Hales. It was proposed that four prominent members of the Anti-Treaty side currently held as prisoners be executed as a reprisal and deterrent. The names put forward were Barrett,Rory O'Connor,Liam Mellows andJoe McKelvey. It has been alleged[who?] that the four were chosen to represent each of the four provinces –Munster,Connacht,Leinster andUlster respectively, but none of the four was actually from Connacht. The executions were ordered by Justice MinisterKevin O'Higgins. At 2 o'clock on the morning of 8 December 1922, Dick Barrett was awoken along with the other three and informed that they were all to be executed at 8 o'clock that morning.
Bloody ironies would stack one upon the other. Barrett was a member of the same IRA brigade as Hales during the Anglo-Irish War, and they were childhood friends. O'Connor had been best man at O'Higgins' wedding less than a year earlier.[13] The rest of Seán Hales's family had remained staunchly anti-Treaty, and publicly denounced the executions. In reprisal for O'Higgins's role in the executions, the Anti-Treaty IRA killed his father and burned his family home inStradbally,County Laois. O'Higgins himself would die by an assassin's hand on 10 July 1927 (see alsoExecutions during the Irish Civil War).
The executions stunned Ireland. The Free State government continued to execute enemy prisoners, and 81 men were executed by the Free State army by the end of the war.[14]
Barrett is now buried in his home county, Cork, following exhumation and reinterment by a later government. A monument was erected by old comrades of the West Cork Brigade, the First Southern Division, IRA, and of the Four Courts, Dublin, garrison in 1922[15] which was unveiled on 13 December 1952 by theTánaisteSeán Lemass.
A poem about the execution was written byGalway clergymanPádraig de Brún.