Remember Kevin Barry

Gemma McKenna
Ógra Shinn Féin

“Lads like Barry are no cowards.
From the foe they will not fly.”

In the rat race that sometimes our world can become we must not forget what our goals as republicans is all about. We are all striving for a 32 County Democratic Socialist Republic and will not stop until that is achieved. This is nothing new but the very aims and objectives that many men and women had fought and died for.

Kevin Barry was a young lad of 15 when he became a volunteer and pledged to fight for the Irish Republic. Kevin was in the army for 3 years and had taken part in a number of operations before his capture on Monday September 1920.


The operation had gone wrong, and Kevin had hid under the lorry but before it was just about to drive away a women shouted, “There’s a man under the lorry!” Barry had no chance to escape and was quickly arrested and sent to Mountjoy prison were he refused to give any information under interrogation.

He had to go to the prison hospital for his arm that had been constantly twisted because he persisted to remain silent.

Kevin was then sentenced on October 28th to be hanged just 4 days later, November 1st 1920. Kevin was an intelligent young lad who was a medical student at the time of his arrest. However, Kevin accepted his fate with extreme courage, it is reported that he was offered money and his life if he give the others name but he refused.

Instead the young man of only 18 faced his death with extreme courage; he is believed to have stated:

“It is nothing to give one’s life for Ireland. I’m not the first and maybe I won’t be the last. What’s my life compared with the cause?"

I think it is important to remember our dead such as Kevin Barry especially as this year is the 100th anniversary of Na Fianna and although he was never in Na Fianna, he is still a young revolutionary who give his life for his country.



Sinn Fein Head Quarters in Dublin are now named in honour of Kevin Barry, and although we can remember him and all our other fallen martyrs ultimate sacrifice, we still have the task of achieving the 32 County Democratic Socialist Republic that they laid down their lives for.

“Lads like Barry will free Ireland,
For her sake they'll live and die.”