Kevin Barry
Kevin Barry | |
| In Mountjoy jail one Monday morning High upon the gallows tree Kevin Barry gave his young life For the cause of liberty But a lad of eighteen summers Yet no one can deny As he walked to death that morning He proudly held his head on high. Chorus: Shoot me like an Irish soldier Do not hang me like a dog For I fought for Ireland's freedom On that gray September morn All around that little bakery Where we fought them hand to hand Shoot me like an Irish soldier For I fought to free Ireland. | 2. Just before he faced the hangman In his dreary prison cell British soldiers tortured Barry Just because he would not tell The names of his brave companions And other things they wished to know "Turn informer or we'll kill you" Kevin Barry answered, "No" Chorus:
3. Calmly standing to attention
4. Another martyr for old Ireland |
Kevin Barry isn't really a song of 1916. Barry was a young medical student who was a volunteer in the IRA in 1920. He was caught hiding under a truck after an ambush on British troops in Queen Street, Dublin. An old man who knew him told me his automatic pistol had jammed. A very young British soldier was shot in the ambush.
Barry came of quite a well off family from Hackettstown on the Carlow/Wicklow border. They ran a successful dairy business in Fleet Street, Dublin in what is now known as Temple Bar, a popular tourist area with many music pubs. Barry was hanged as a common criminal and was maltreated before his execution.
He was the first Irishman to be judicially executed by the British since the 1916 Rebellion (others were the victims of summary executions and torture, however). The execution had a profound influence on public opinion.