The Hanging of Kevin Barry

Introduction from Chronology

Kevin Barry is hung in Mountjoy Jail.

Comment

There is a very good article by John Ainsworth called ‘Kevin Barry, the Incident at Monk’s Bakery and the Making of an Irish Republican Legend’ in the Vol 87, Issue 287 of the journal History (2002) which places Barry’s hanging in the context of the on-going propaganda war. There is another good article by M. A. Doherty called ‘Kevin Barry and the Anglo-Irish Propaganda War’ in Vol 32 of the journal Irish Historical Studies (Nov 2000).

Mark Sturgis records in his diary “Barry hanged this morning in Mountjoy. Would have been better to have shot him as a rebel after drumhead Court Martial at the time rather than hanging him as a murderer after a month”.

Back