of this aspect of his life. Volunteer activities In October 1917, during his second year at Belvedere, aged 15, he joined Company C, 1st Battalion of the Dublin Brigade of the Irish Volunteers. When Company C was later reorganized he was reassigned to the newly formed Company H, under the command of Captain Seamus Kavanagh. He was attached to Company C, of the 3rd Battalion of the Carlow Brigade during his vacations from school in Tombeagh. The following year, at age 16, he was introduced by Seán O'Neill and Bob O'Flanagan to the Clarke Luby Club of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB). At some point in time he was sworn as a member of this secret society which was led by Michael Collins. Barry's activities in Dublin focused on training and operations to acquire weapons and ammunition. Training sites were regularly shifted to avoid discovery, but the extent of training that Barry received is questionable. Although he served in the Volunteers for almost three years, his operational experience prior to the Monk's Bakery ambush was somewhat limited. For the most part, Volunteers in Dublin did little other than training and few saw action or heard shots fired in anger. He took part in a number of small operations including a raid on the Shamrock Works for weapons intended for the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), and a raid on Mark's of Capel Street, looking for ammunition and explosives. Barry's one significant action prior to Monk's Bakery was the raid for weapons on a military outpost at King's Inn on Constitution Hill. The Dublin Brigade had carefully reconnoitered the site and developed an operations plan to be completed within seven minutes. On 1 June 1920, a hand-picked team from the Dublin Brigade's three battalions attacked the site taking the 25 soldiers by surprise, and seizing the available weapons. Within only six minutes the raiders had secured rifles, light machine guns, and large quantities of ammunition, and had departed the site with no casualties. Ambush Two Dublin Volunteers had noticed that a British army lorry guarded by an armed party of soldiers made twice weekly trips to Monk's Bakery on Church Street to obtain bread. Based on these observations, John Joe Carroll of Company H conducted a reconnaissance of the bakery. In addition to its main entrance on Church Street, he observed that the bakery yard was also accessible by a corridor leading