Richard Barrett (Irish republican)
| Richard Barrett | |
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Richard Barrett
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| Personal details | |
| Born |
17 December 1889 Knockacullen (Hollyhill), County Cork, Ireland |
| Died | 8 December 1922 (aged 32) Mountjoy Prison, Dublin, Ireland |
Richard "Dick" Barrett (17 December 1889 – 8 December 1922) was a prominent Irish Republican Army volunteer who fought in the War of Independence and on the Anti-Treaty side in the Irish Civil War during which he was captured and later executed on 8 December 1922.
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 the De La Salle College, Waterford, where he trained to be a teacher. Obtaining a first-class diploma, he first taught at Ballinamult, County Tipperary but he returned to Cork in early 1914 to take up a position at the Upton industrial school. Within months he was appointed principal of Gurrane National School. Devoted to the Irish language and honorary secretary of Knockavilla GAA club, he 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 but by 1917 he was involved with the Irish Volunteers and Sinn Féin, in which role he attended the Sinn Féin Ard-Fheis in October 1917 at the Mansion House and the Irish Volunteers Convention at Croke Park immediately afterwards. A description of the Convention by Richard Walsh:
"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 themse1ves 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."
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