attack, which was on Rosscarbery police barracks in late March 1921. Barry's ability as a guerrilla commander was widely acknowledged in the IRA, and in the early summer of 1921 he was summoned to Dublin to meet with IRA leader Michael Collins and President of the Irish Republic Éamon de Valera. He also participated in the formation of the IRA's First Southern Division, of which he was made Deputy Commander. Barry openly admitted in his memoir to taking a hard line with people he believed were collaborators with the British forces. He stated that his unit executed 16 civilians accused of informing in the first six months of 1921. While he acknowledged that nine of the 16 killings were Protestants, who were a minority in West Cork, he maintained that they were killed for no other reason than for their aid to British forces. He maintained, "The majority of the West Cork Protestants lived at peace throughout the entire struggle and were not interfered with by the IRA". Barry also stated that his unit burned the houses of local loyalists in retaliation for burning of republicans' homes by British forces and carried out reprisal killings of captured and off-duty British soldiers in response to the execution of IRA men. The war in rural Cork was abruptly ended with a truce negotiated to come into effect on 11 July 1921. At this time the West Cork flying column was, with other IRA units, in a training camp in the mountains along the Cork/Kerry border. Barry recalled his initial reaction as "dazed and uncertain of the future" but relief that the "days of fear were ended, at least for a time". He claimed that his unit had killed over 100 British troops and wounded another 93 during the conflict. Barry later wrote of the period: Civil War During the truce period, Barry married Leslie Mary Price, who was herself a republican activist. Barry opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 6 December 1921 because he felt it gave up the Irish Republic and accepted the partition of Ireland. In March 1922, he participated in an IRA convention which disavowed the authority of the Dáil to approve the Treaty and was elected on to the anti-Treaty IRA's executive. In March 1922, he and his men occupied barracks in Limerick in defiance of the new Irish Free State government, and it looked as if fighting would