Thomas Kirby, an ex-British soldier from Golden, came to the attention of IRA intelligence after he was seen drinking with members of the RIC and spending large sums of money. The IRA suspected Kirby of spying and exiled him from the district. Kirby sought refuge in Dundrum barracks, where the Royal Lincolnshire Regiment was stationed. According to the local IRA unit’s brigade activity report, Kirby began working as an ‘identifier’:
‘This man frequently guided enemy forces in their nightly prowls for wanted men. Though he always endeavoured to conceal his identity [by wearing a British uniform] but he did not escape the watchful eye of our Battalion Intelligence Officer. One night he ventured out alone and was followed and captured.’
Kirby had been drinking in the Big Man’s Pub in Ballybrack in January 1921 when he was abducted by the IRA and court-martialled on the charge of spying by the IRA’s local battalion commandant, Tadhg Dwyer, and the battalion adjutant, Phil Fitzgerald. Kirby is alleged to have admitted to having given intelligence information to the British and expressed his regret for having done so, but pleaded ‘not guilty’ on the grounds of insanity. He was executed by a firing squad and was buried in a bog at Turraheen, near Rossmore. Kirby’s body was discovered in September 1990, in a makeshift British Army uniform, and formally reburied.
Here is the remnants of his uniform he was buried in.
