War of Independence veteran laid to rest
Tributes were paid today at the funeral of the last survivor of the War of Independence.
Dan Keating died aged 105 on Tuesday after a short illness and was laid to rest following a low-key service his native Kerry.
Several hundred mourners attended the Requiem Mass at Kiltallagh Church.
Born in Castlemaine in January 1902, he joined youth movement Fianna Eireann while in his teens and remained a steadfast hard-line republican throughout his life.
In the War of Independence he fought in the IRA’s Kerry brigades against the Black and Tans.
Keating, an IRA rifleman, was involved in two major attacks on the auxiliaries, at Castlemaine and Castleisland, where up to 12 British troops were killed along with several IRA men.
Later he fought against the the Free State forces in the Civil War in Limerick and Tipperary.
Keating was made patron of hard-line Republican Sinn Fein in 2002 and party president Ruairi O’Bradaigh paid tribute to him at the funeral.
“During his long, healthy and adventurous lifetime, Dan has seen many splits and deviations from Republican principles, but he had remained loyal and true, and there is no more fitting recipient of this honour than this noble son of Kerry,” he said.
In the early 1920s he was interned in Portlaoise jail and later in the Curragh. He was also jailed in the 1930s on several occasions and after joining the small-scale IRA sabotage campaign in England in 1939 he returned home and was again interned without trial at the Curragh 1940-44.
In his last years he refused the €2,500 centenarians award over President Mary McAleese’s increasingly close relations with the British royal family.
