The skirmish in which Kevin Barry was captured took place on September 20, 1920. You can make the lyrics historically accurate by singing: "I fought for Ireland's freedom on that cold September morn..."

Barry was hanged on November 1, 1920, his 18th birthday. Because of his age, there were many appeals to commute his sentence. The British may have been willing to do so had he turned informer and given up the names and whereabouts of the other volunteers in his unit. Neither Barry nor his captors blinked, however. During the 1919-1921 Irish War for Independence, many Irish volunteers who killed far more people than Barry had were spared execution. Most, if not all, were later granted amnesty. A tragic fact of history is that during the 1922-1923 Irish Civil War, the government of the newly created Irish Free State carried out a greater proportion of death sentences of rebels than the British had. The victims of the Free State firing squads were anti-Treaty Irish Republicans who refused to accept partition of their nation. That's why we have a legacy of songs like "The Broad Black Brimmer" and "Take It Down From the Mast, Irish Traitors!"

---- Steve