Ruairí de Barra is a writer, poet, and defence and security contributor. He served 25 years with the Irish Naval Service, retiring as a Senior Chief Petty Officer, and is now Regional Technical Lead for the RNLI in Ireland.
He has written extensively on maritime, military, historical, and international affairs for both academic and professional publications. As an accredited Irish Defence Forces military journalist, he is a regular contributor to An Cosantóir, the official magazine of the Irish Defence Forces. His work has also appeared in Emergency Services Ireland, Contact (Australia), and other defence and emergency services publications.
In 2017, he was the inaugural winner of the An Cosantóir Gen MJ Costello Award. He has been twice nominated for the European Military Press Association Awards: first in 2017 for Rebuilding Somalia: The Sea is Their Future, and again in 2018 for Shipshape and Ready for Action.
He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Leadership, Management, and Naval Studies from CIT, and a Master of Commerce in Government and Public Policy from UCC. From 2015 to 2018, his service with the Defence Forces centred on the Mediterranean migrant crisis. In 2015 he served as Chief of the Engineering Department on the Irish naval flagship LÉ Eithne, on the first Irish deployment of the humanitarian rescue mission Operation PONTUS. Through 2016 and 2017 he trained the crews who followed, at sea on passage to the area of operations. In 2018 he returned in the same role on LÉ Samuel Beckett, with the European naval mission Operation SOPHIA. That service is the ground beneath his novel Migrant: A Libyan Storm.
His creative writing has been published in a range of literary journals and anthologies, including Tinteán, A New Ulster, Live Encounters, Bangor Literary Journal, Rantology: Lest We Rest on Our Laurels, Black Bough Poetry, The Boston Globe, Poetry Jukebox, The Silence Anthology, and The Cobh Chronicle.
Ruairí also writes fantasy and science fiction as Karol Barry, a name drawn from his own: Karol is one of his given middle names, and Barry is the English form of de Barra.
For bios and key facts to use in print, see the Press kit. To get in touch, use the contact page.
Community and service
- Employer’s Guide to Defence Forces Veterans
- Fleet Support Group
- Irish Writers Union
- Cobh Readers & Writers
- Cobh Poetry Jukebox
- Cobh Little Library
- Interviews
Notes on Paper Never Refused Ink
One of the finest Chiefs to ever don stripes once told me, “Paper never refused ink.” I loved the phrase. Pretty sure we were talking about writing nonsense in the news, but it stuck with me as a perfect summary of the inherent permission everyone has to write, even if most of what will be written wouldn’t be read by many, or even anyone at all.
I am a Mayoman lost in Cork, and I have not been able to find my way out for almost three decades. I love to write, and a friend gave me the best advice ever a number of years ago. He said, “Never throw away another word before you at least rewrite it.” So I took a first step over ten years ago to create this WordPress page, and it started from there. I am always eager to learn more, think more, read more, write more, rewrite even more, and throw away far less.
