Reporter:
5 Feb 2021
Matt Barry, great grandson of David Guerin, who was centrally involved in the ambush, with his daughter Aisling Barry, and historian Eddie O Dea, at the Dromkeen Memorial | PICTURE: Brendan Gleeson );
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After the 1916 Easter Rising, sixteen of the Irish Republican leaders were executed and thousands of Irishmen were arrested and interned.
Trials had been held in secret and many Irish people were angered at their harsh treatment and their resistance against British rule grew. There was an escalation of emotion. General Tom Barry, who was a prominent Irish Republican Army (IRA) leader during the War of Independence, blamed the actions of his British opponents for the shift in Irish people’s attitudes and said, “We are now hard, cold and ruthless, as our enemy has been since hostilities began… they (the British) have gone down into the mire to destroy us and our nation, and down after them we had to go”.