Saturday, February 22, 2014
Fine Art & Antiques
Rare photo of Kevin Barry’s rugby days discovered
Newly discovered photo of 15-year-old Kevin Barry playing rugby in Lansdowne Road
A newly discovered photograph of Kevin Barry, published today for the first time, shows the 15-year-old schoolboy playing rugby at Lansdowne Road in 1917. Three years later he was dead, hanged at Mountjoy Gaol for his role in a deadly ambush of British soldiers in central Dublin during the War of Independence .
The image depicts Barry about to score a try for his school, Belvedere College, and help defeat Blackrock College in the Leinster Schools Rugby Junior Cup final.
The photograph has been in private ownership for nearly a century but has now been consigned to auction at Fonsie Mealy Auctioneers which specialises in rare books and historical memorabilia. The vendor is a descendant of Kevin Barry’s and the photograph will be sold at auction in Dublin this summer.
Photographs of Kevin Barry are exceedingly rare. The best-known is a head and shoulders shot used on a postage stamp in 1970. It reputedly depicts him wearing a Belvedere College hurling team jersey, a sport in which he also excelled.
Kevin Barry was born in Dublin in 1902. His family had a farm in Co Carlow and a dairy in Fleet Street, Dublin. He attended primary school in Rathvilly, Co Carlow and then went to St Mary’s College in Rathmines before transferring to Belvedere College. During his second year at the school he secretly joined the IRA.
Popular balladIn 1920, Barry, then a medical student at UCD, was sentenced to death by a military court martial for his involvement in an ambush which caused the deaths of three British soldiers at North King Street on September 20th. The soldiers were collecting bread from a bakery for delivery to Collinstown Aerodrome.
Popular balladIn 1920, Barry, then a medical student at UCD, was sentenced to death by a military court martial for his involvement in an ambush which caused the deaths of three British soldiers at North King Street on September 20th. The soldiers were collecting bread from a bakery for delivery to Collinstown Aerodrome.
Barry’s execution, by hangman John Ellis on November 1st, 1920, outraged Irish public opinion and is commemorated in a popular ballad which described him as “just a lad of 18 summers”.
The three British soldiers who died in the ambush included Pte Harold Washington from Salford in Lancashire who was aged just 16, although some sources claim he was 15 and had lied about his age to join the army.
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I suppose that if, instead of joining the IRA, Kevin Barry had joined the British army two years previously and had partaken in the Jallianwala Bagh (Amritsar) massacre of 1,000 civilians in 1919 in India under the auspices of a dedicated servant of the British Empire - a man with Solohead Beg connections (not Dan Breen!) - many of the same people who now indulge in smug, moralising detractions would be demanding a special monument for him at Islandbridge.
2
Dan Breen like his fellow current and past IRA are all murderers, the difference being Dan Breen admitted to this fact, others lie regularly and in open forum.
Islandbridge has already a very fine monument to all who gave their lives, sometimes needlessely, in the belief of "Freedom of small Nations" Kevin Barry's loss of life was a total waste like all other lives lost in this country deliberitely by a group of very evil manulipers who could have called a stop many years before the 1994 came into force... shame upon them for the needless suffering caused so many innocent people and the ongoing lies they continue to spout out in our Dail and expect all law abiding people to believe
Islandbridge has already a very fine monument to all who gave their lives, sometimes needlessely, in the belief of "Freedom of small Nations" Kevin Barry's loss of life was a total waste like all other lives lost in this country deliberitely by a group of very evil manulipers who could have called a stop many years before the 1994 came into force... shame upon them for the needless suffering caused so many innocent people and the ongoing lies they continue to spout out in our Dail and expect all law abiding people to believe
1
Wow what a find. Poor chap. God rest him. I did my LC history special topic on him. Alas his sacrifice certainly does seem a waste when one reads some of the disgusting comments here...
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I've said this before and it gets boring, "just a lad of 18 summers", born early and murdered late, do the maths, na na na na nineteeen. In fact I altered his Wiki page. The picture is a great find, although it was actually hidden(away).
Typical Irish Times revisionism. So Private Washington was 16 or 15, so what? Many young teenagers were complicit in horrific atrocities in the wars of Liberia, Sierra Leone etc. What 's your point? Barry didn't die needlessly: the Treaty that followed the war was vastly superior to the gutted 1914 (Third) Home Rule Act. What price freedom? Why the prissy moralism surrounding the independence struggle? Let's not forget: W.O.I. casualties: 2.014., W.W.1: 22,477,500 KIA, WIA or MIA.
3
15 or 16 "so what?"you say- Kb was 18? I think the point is that most normal people would consider it very sad for ones so young to die in either manner.
'most nornal people' indeed.
The brit murder machine were sending 16 year olds off to do the most heinous and evil things to their fellow human beings, the only difference today is that they send 18 year olds off to do evil and heinous things.
The brit murder machine were sending 16 year olds off to do the most heinous and evil things to their fellow human beings, the only difference today is that they send 18 year olds off to do evil and heinous things.
1
Yes indeed it was tragic, very tragic but those soldiers were on an Irish street trying to occupy a country against the democratic will of its people. Kevin Barry, as with many of his brave comrades stood up against that, against forces that rules 30% of the world at the time. He was not seeking to occupy Nottingham or Brighton but to fulfill the will of Irish people for generations to be as free as Denmark, Brazil or anywhere else. Such is courage and nobility, a nobility that should be honoured as it is in other countries with a modicum of self respect.
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Interesting, I can assume that my father was present at that match. He was in Beevedere at that time but was probably too young to be playing, he was born in 1904. Other interesting sidelight, my fathers younger brother transferred to Belvedere in the 1916 period from St Mary's College, which closed at that time, presumably for security reasons - being next to Portobello Barracks.
Classic irish times article. Degerating irish hero calling him a rugby playing playboy of a weathy family biting the hand that fed him and then comparing the death of the invaders to a man protecting his own people. All the while putting the blame on the IRA which didnt exist yet. Well done westbrits how will your boys do playing against the IRFU today
3
Fair play to the IT for rewriting the article, as there appears to be none of that in the revised version.
Kevin Barry seems to be a normal young man of his day until he was corrupted by the IRA and its evil mandate. Like the IRA of more recent times, they continue to practise their evil intent and murder at randon to this day. We experience their outrageous lies every day, young Barry was corrupted by them and paid the ultimate price
1
lmao, ha ha ha lol lol lol.
you are corrupt and it's time you came to terms with that fat.
|Kevin barry was a hero who fought vicious murdering terrorist scum and paid the ultimate price.
you are corrupt and it's time you came to terms with that fat.
|Kevin barry was a hero who fought vicious murdering terrorist scum and paid the ultimate price.
1
He didn't pay anything other than the price of freedom. He was so brave that the priest was convinced that he had no real idea what was in store for him in the morning.
Kevin, as it states here was hanged. RTE broadcast a "Miriam Greets" a few years ago where a 95 year old woman said that she remembered hearing the shots that morning, RTE duly broadcast the program and when I complained about disinformation and straight forward untruthery the reply from Sarah Binchy was that it was her memory and they decided to keep it in, much more of a likeyhood was that the people making the program did in no their history!!
Kevin, as it states here was hanged. RTE broadcast a "Miriam Greets" a few years ago where a 95 year old woman said that she remembered hearing the shots that morning, RTE duly broadcast the program and when I complained about disinformation and straight forward untruthery the reply from Sarah Binchy was that it was her memory and they decided to keep it in, much more of a likeyhood was that the people making the program did in no their history!!
During his 2nd year in Belvedere College "he secretly joined the IRA". Are you sure about that, given that the IRA only came into being in 1919, the year before 18-year-old Barry was executed?
2
they're too quick to spit their brit propaganda, they couldn't check the facts, it was too close to the print run.
