IRISH republicans yesterday marked the 100th anniversary of the execution of Kevin Barry, a University College Dublin medical student and IRA member who was 18 when he died.
The Dublin native, whose execution at the hands of the British military has since saw him elevated to legendary status, was hanged in Mountjoy jail on November 1, 1920.
He was court-martialed rather than tried by a civilian court and found guilty of the murder of a British soldier during a failed attempt by the IRA to seize weapons from the soldier's unit in Dublin weeks earlier.
Barry was buried in unconsecrated ground inside the prison walls, until he and nine other executed IRA prisoners were disinterred and given state funerals in October 2001.
The decision by then taoiseach Bertie Ahern to grant state funerals to Barry and the others generated controversy at the time, with accusations from opposition politicians that Mr Ahern was using the occasion to assert the Fianna Fáil ownership of the republican tradition, over Sinn Féin's claims.
Northern unionists alleged that then Fianna Fáil leader was reviving the ghosts of physical force republicanism .
Barry subsequently became the subject of ballads, one called simply 'Kevin Barry', so famous internationally that it was recorded by singer and political activist Paul Robeson and also sang later in concert by Leonard Cohen.
Sinn Féin held an online commemoration yesterday afternoon, with party leader Mary-Lou McDonald tweeting his parting message of "Hold on and stick to the Republic" and saying he was "remembered with pride 100 years later".
Former Fianna Fáil deputy leader Éamon Ó Cuív tweeted: "Today we remember Kevin Barry who was hanged in Mountjoy Prison on this date 100 years ago,aged just 18."
His party colleague Jim O'Callaghan tweeted: "Kevin Barry was hanged 100 years ago this morning in Mountjoy jail. His execution at 18 provoked huge indignation but inspired the cause of Irish independence."
