On this date in 1920, 18-year-old Irish Republican Army Section Commander Kevin Barry was hanged in Dublin’s Mountjoy Prison for the murder of English Private Harold Whitehead in an IRA ambush just six weeks prior to the execution. Denying the authority of the British (civilian) court, the young medical student went undefended, insouciantly reading the newspaper in court as the government built its case against him. His was the first execution of the Irish War of Independence, and stoked Irish nationalist sentiment on the island and abroad.