44
Barry (Kevin) A large folder containing minutes,
correspondence, accounts, lists of subscribers etc. of the Kevin
Barry Memorial Committee.
Soon after his execution, a committee was established to erect a
memorial to Kevin Barry. Meetings were held and funds collected.
However, affairs languished until 1929, when the committee was re-
established and a determined effort was made to bring matters to a
conclusion. There was much discussion as to who exactly should be
commemorated, who should subscribe, and what form the memorial
might take.
It was eventually decided to erect a large stained glass window in
UCD, Barry’s
alma mater
, to celebrate his death and his place in Irish
history. Eight significant scenes in the Irish struggle for freedom
were selected, and the commission was given to the Harry Clarke
Studio. Clarke himself died in 1931 but his place was taken by
Richard King, a native of Castlebar who had joined the firm in 1928.
It was King who designed the work and brought it to fruition. There
is a sketch of the proposed design on the back of an advertisement
for Harry Clarke Studio.
It was intended that the subscribers should be graduates of UCD,
regardless of their party politics. An offer of support from the
College’s Fianna Fáil Cumann provoked a furious response from the
Secretary of the Fine Gael Cumann, who signed himself grandly
as “de Riva O’Phelan of the Decies” - “Any attempt by any political
organisation or unit to make party capital by auctioning the name of
Kevin Barry is deplorable.”
The Committee was further embarrassed by a late contribution of
$100 sent via the
Irish Press
by one John O’Donoghue IV of New
York. His accompanying letter was printed in the newspaper on 28
December 1934. After castigating the
Committee for the long delay in providing
a memorial to Kevin Barry, he continued:
“In Germany, where the writer spends
several months annually, all of the
youthful martyrs of Adolf Hitler’s splendid
movement are immortalized in song and
prose, and statues are erected to their
memories. It is not every land that can
produce great young heroes like Kevin
Barry and Horst Wessel [author of the
Nazi Party anthem], the student martyr
of Germany. The latter was murdered
in 1930 by a Communist, and today his
memory is held in reverence by each and
every German.”
While negotiations were still in train,
a general election was called for 24
January 1933, and the folder contains election manifestoes for UCD
candidates Conor A. Maguire, Helena Concannon, Michael Hayes and
Patrick McGilligan.
The memorial was finally unveiled on 1 November 1934, the
fourteenth anniversary of Barry’s execution.
The folder also contains a copy of the
National Student
magazine for
December 1945, containing an editorial on Kevin Barry on the 25 th
anniversary of his execution, and an obituary of Eoin MacNeill, who
had died in October. A highly important collection. As an Archive,
w.a.f. (1)
€800 - 1200
410
The Kevin Barry Memorial Committee Records (1930 - 1934)
Imperfections Not Stated
