SALFORD BOY BURIED IN WEASTE CEMETERY AND HIS PART IN IRELAND'S HISTORY

If you are of Irish descent there is a very good chance that you may have heard of Kevin Barry or more likely heard the song, Kevin Barry which tells of his fate, a song covered by many, many people including Leonard Cohen.

The ballad tells of "just a lad of 18 summers" who was convicted for his part in an attack on a British Army lorry which resulted in the deaths of three British soldiers and was hung in Dublin's Mountjoy prison in November 1920.

Harold Washington was born on the 5th December 1901, and lived at 189 Regent Road, Salford, his father, George was a shoemaker by trade, he had two elder brothers, George who died in 1900 aged seven, and William who was killed fighting in France, October 1918 aged 19.

Harold joined the Duke of Wellingtons Regiment and gave a false date of birth saying he was 19 when in fact he was much younger.

These two young men's path would cross with tragic consequences on the morning of 20th September 1920, when a small group of British soldiers were sent to Monk's Bakery in Dublin city centre to pick up bread for the regiment.

Kevin Barry who was a medical student at the time had gained a reputation as being a dedicated volunteer in the IRA and had taken part in raids on the British Army in which rifles and ammunition  were stolen and that was the plan for the raid on the troops at Monk's Bakery.

What happened next is often disputed but the facts are that shots were fired and Harold Washington aged 15 lay dying from a gunshot wound, two other soldiers, Private Marshall Whitehead aged 20 and Private Thomas Humphries aged 19 would die from their gunshot wounds shortly after.

Barry was arrested hiding underneath the Army lorry, he was thrown into the same truck with the dying, Harold Washington and taken into custody for it has to be said, brutal interrogation from troops no doubt, outraged at the deaths of their comrades.

He faced an Army Court Martial rather than a Court of Law and was charged with the death of all three soldiers, a bullet was removed from Private Whitehead's body and was shown to have been fired from his Mauser pistol, this sealed his fate after much legal wrangling and he was sentenced to death by hanging.

Despite mass protests throughout Ireland the sentence was carried out on the 1st of November 1920 and his body was buried in the grounds of Mountjoy Prison where it remained until October 2001 when it was given a state funeral and reinterred in Glasnevin Cemetery.

As for poor Harold Washington, his name has been forgotten, no ballads, commemorative stamps, blocks of flats named after him, just a neat and tidy family grave in Weaste Cemetery, Salford, on the right hand side as you go in.

Four young men all under the age of 20, their lives all to be taken within a space of weeks and in Harold's case. minutes, the final irony is that Harold who had lied about his age to join the Army died weeks from his 16th Birthday despite his age being shown as 16 on his gravestone.