Garret Barry (soldier)

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Garrett Barry
Died1646
Limerick
Allegiance
RankCaptain in the Spanish service
Battles/wars

Garret Barry (died 1647) was an Irish soldier who served during the Eighty Years' War in the Spanish Army of Flanders and then in Ireland during the Irish Rebellion of 1641 and the Irish Confederate Wars as general of the Munster Army.

Birth and origins[]

Garret Barry came from a landed Old English family, the De Barrys, seated in County Cork, southern Ireland. His father probably was David FitzGerrot Barry of Rincurran near Kinsale.[1] Like many Irish Catholic gentlemen of his generation, particularly younger sons, he left Ireland to pursue a military career in Catholic Europe.

Spanish Service[]

He served for almost thirty years in an Irish regiment of the Spanish Army of Flanders against the forces of the United Provinces of the Netherlands. He fought at the siege of Rheinberg in 1608 and became a captain in Owen Roe O'Neill's Irish regiment in Spanish service. He fought at the capture of Breda in 1625 and was retired from active service in 1632.

Irish wars[]

In October 1641 Phelim O'Neill launched the Irish Rebellion from the northern province of Ulster.[2] When Barry visited Ireland in 1640 to recruit for the Spanish Army, his endeavour was interrupted by the arrival of the rebellion in Southern Ireland. Barry sided with his fellow Catholics. In January 1642 Barry and Maurice Roche, 8th Viscount Fermoy besieged Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork in Youghal.[3] On 2 March 1642 Donough MacCarty, the 2nd Viscount Muskerry joined the rebellion[a][5] When the insurgents organised in the Irish Catholic Confederation, they made him general of their forces in Munster. Barry took King John's Castle in Limerick for the Confederates through skillful use of the siege techniques he had learnt in Flanders—in particular undermining of the castle's walls (see Siege of Limerick 1642).

However, Barry failed to take Cork and was driven off in disorder at the Battle of Liscarroll when his forces advanced on the city. Despite this defeat, he was confirmed as commander of the Confederate Munster army by the General Assembly in 1642.[6] Barry seems to have kept the position until his death in early March 1646 at Limerick[7][8] but took little further part in the war.

Works[]

Barry was also a prolific author on military matters, writing several handbooks on how to train and discipline troops and how to handle them in battle.

  • The Siege of Breda (Louvain: Henricus Hastenius, 1627) online at Google Books
  • A Discourse of Military Discipline (Brussels: Widow of John Mommart, 1634) [ online at Internet Archive]

Barry's The Siege of Breda is essentially a translation into English of the book on the subject by Herman Hugo with some additions from his own experience.

Notes, citations, and sources[]

Notes[]

  1. ^ Muskerry changed sides on Ash Wednesday 1642.[4] Calculations with the Easter Calculator of the University of Utrecht or that of the IMCCE show that Ash Wednesday fell on 2 March in 1642.

Citations[]

  1. ^ Lenihan 2004, p. 130, right column: "Barry, Gerat (d. 1646), army officer  ... was probably the individual of that name who embarked from Kinsale with the Spanish forces in March 1601 in the company of his father, David FitzGerrot Barry of Rincurran ..."
  2. ^ Dunlop 1895, p. 205: "In accordance with the final arrangements for the rebellion, Sir Phelim on the evening of 22 Oct. surprised Charlemont Castle ..."
  3. ^ Townshend 1904, pp. 100–102: "... in the beginning of January [1642] Youghal had surrendered to the Irish under Lord Roche and General Barry. ... My Lord [Cork] had some small notice of their coming, and therefore got with all his men into the castle ..."
  4. ^ McGrath 1997a, p. 203, line 20: "He declared for his co-religionists on Ash Wednesday 1642 ..."
  5. ^ M'Enery 1904, p. 172: "Lord Muskerry joined the insurgents early in March [1642]."
  6. ^ Ó Siochrú, "MacCarthy, Donough", Last sentence of 2nd paragraph: "... appointed Garret Barry, a continental veteran, as compromise commander in Munster ..."
  7. ^ Lenihan 2004, p. 131, left column: "Barry died in Limerick City in early March 1646."
  8. ^ Armstrong, "Barry, Garret", last sentence of article: "... seems to have retained his titular command until his death in March 1646."

Sources[]

  • Armstrong, Robert. "Barry, Garret (Gerat)". Dictionary of Irish Biography. Retrieved 4 August 2021. – Online edition
  • Dunlop, Robert (1895). "O'Neill, Phelim 1604?–1653". In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 42. New York: MacMillan and Co. pp. 204–208. OCLC 8544105.
  • Lenihan, Pádraig (2004). "Barry, Gerat (d. 1646)". In Matthew, Henry Colin Gray; Harrison, Brian (eds.). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 4. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 130–131. ISBN 0-19-861354-7.
  • M'Enery, M. J. (1904). "A Diary of the Siege of Limerick Castle, 1642". The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland. 5th. 34 (2): 163–187. JSTOR 25507363.
  • McGrath, Brid (1997a). "Donough Mc Carthy, (1594–1665) Cork County". A Biographical Dictionary of the Membership of the Irish House of Commons 1640 to 1641 (Thesis). Vol. 1. Dublin: Trinity College. pp. 203–204. – Parliaments & Biographies (PDF downloadable from given URL)
  • Ó Siochrú, Micheál. "MacCarthy, Donough". Dictionary of Irish Biography. Retrieved 23 December 2020. – Online edition
  • Townshend, Dorothea (1904). "The Irish Attack on Youghal in 1642" (PDF). Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society. 10 (62): 100–102.
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