John Barry (VC)

He wrecked a Maxim gun as the enemy surrounded his position.

John Barry was born in Kilkenny, Ireland, on 1 February 1873. He enlisted in the Royal Irish Regiment in December 1890 and served with its 1st Battalion in India. His early campaigning included operations on the North-West Frontier in 1897, for which he earned the India Medal with the Samana and Punjab Frontier clasps. He subsequently served in South Africa during the Second Boer War.

By January 1901 the battalion was defending positions around Belfast in the eastern Transvaal. During the night of 7–8 January, Boer forces attacked Monument Hill and overran the British position. Barry remained beside a Maxim machine gun as the attackers closed around him. Rather than allow them to take the weapon intact, he smashed its breech and rendered it unusable. He was killed while destroying it on 8 January.

His action was subsequently recognized in the group of posthumous Victoria Cross awards announced in August 1902. The award acknowledged the recommendation that would have been made had he survived, at a time when the treatment of posthumous awards was being reconsidered. His South African service also earned the Queen's South Africa Medal with the Cape Colony, Wittebergen and Belfast clasps.

Barry was buried at Belfast. His Victoria Cross and two campaign medals remained together and were acquired for the Ashcroft collection after their sale in 2000. His commemoration in Kilkenny preserves the connection between an Irish recruit, his long overseas service, and the decision he made in the final moments of the defence of Monument Hill.

Official Victoria Cross citation

During the night attack on the 7th and 8th January, 1901, on Monument Hill, Private Barry, although surrounded and threatened by the Boers at the time, smashed the breach of the Maxim gun, thus rendering it useless to its captors, and it was in doing this splendid act for his country that he met his death.

(The London Gazette of 8 August 1902, Numb. 27462, p. 5086)