Dig to find body of man shot in Civil War
A dig to uncover the remains of a man believed to have been shot during the Civil War in Mid-Kerry has finished without result.
The dig by members of the Garda Technical Bureau at Keel, Castlemaine, on the edge of the Dingle peninsula, got under way yesterday morning and ended around lunchtime.
Tralee gardaí had been given detailed information about the alleged burial during the Civil War of the man believed to have been shot as an informer by the IRA in the Keel area. He was from North Kerry, according to local stories.
The search was focused on a field, where the recent information to gardaí suggested the remains had been moved sometime after the execution.
The Garda Press Office said: “Gardaí carried out an excavation at a site in Keel, Castlemaine, Co Kerry, this morning, September 18, following information that there was a man buried there since the 1920s. The dig has since finished and no discovery was made.”
The Civil War in Kerry was one of the most vicious in any part of the country and brutal killings/executions were carried out by both sides.
It is not clear how many were killed or indeed how many of the dead are unaccounted for as a number of young men also had to flee.
