Former IRA volunteer's play explores the life and execution of Kevin Barry

Irish patriot Kevin Barry was eighteen years old when he was executed on November 1st 1920 for his part in an IRA ambush which killed three young British soldiers aged fifteen, nineteen and twenty. In a controversial new play former IRA volunteer Shane Paul O'Doherty tells his version of the story of Kevin's arrest, imprisonment and execution. Writing here he explains what motivated him to write the play.

In September 1973 when I was bombing London single-handedly with small time bombs and letter bombs I was eighteen years old.

In September 1920 when Kevin Barry was participating in a raid for arms outside Monks Bakery on Church Street, Dublin, he was eighteen years old.