Part 1 - Letter from Tom Barry

2 pp; manuscript

A letter from Tom Barry, 64 St. Patrick’s Street, Cork, to Bartholmew ‘Batt’ Murphy, referring to an event organised by the West Cork Michael Collins Memorial Committee held in Collins’s birthplace of Sam’s Cross near Clonakilty in County Cork. Barry writes ‘The crowd was enormous; the weather kindly and best of all was the sight of hundreds of the veterans, divided by the civil strife, marching together once more’. He adds ‘Even during the Civil War, I spoke of Mick’s great services to Ireland, and I paid him the same tribute in “Guerrilla Days in Ireland”. I only acted and spoke as I saw the truth about the man’.