WICKLOW
POSTSCRIPT
– Catherine Wright
Researching Wicklow County Archives: The Barton Collection County archives tell the story of the development of communities and the administrations who served them. They hold the records of county councils and their predecessors – the Grand Juries, Poor Law Guardians, Corporation Boroughs and Town Commissioners. County archives also hold the private papers and often business archives of families administering, living and working in the county. One such collection of private papers, held by the Wicklow County Archives, is the Barton Collection. The public and the private records complement each other; providing us with a more rounded understanding of historical events.
The highest honour Barton was arrested by the British in February 1919, at the very the beginning of the War of Independence, for making seditious speeches at Carnew and Shillelagh. He made a famously daring escape from Mountjoy prison but was recaptured within a year, subsequently suffering very harsh treatment in Portland Prison, before being finally released in 1921. While Barton was in prison, Wicklow County Council honoured him by making him chairman of the council at a meeting on 18 June 1920: “Resolved – Whereas R.C. Barton, T.D. was savagely sentenced to a term of penal servitude in an English prison by a Court-martial of the English Army of Occupation in Ireland ... We the members of Wicklow County Council ... as a protest against this inhuman treatment, and as proof that the Irish patriot in an English prison is ever dear to his people, hereby confer on R.C. Barton the highest honour it is our gift to bestow, that of Chairman of this Council. Further we ask the justice-loving people of every land to note that R.C. Barton fought in France for the freedom of small nationalities, and that of England, the ‘Champion of Small Nations’, rewards him with a convict cell for seeking to free the oldest of small nations – Ireland. Carried unanimously.” (Wicklow County Archives, WLAA/WCC/M/10) 241
