Ray, thanks for the obits on Dan Keating; it is an end of an era.  My father(a Kerryman) was an I.R.A. man from 1916 till after the Civil War.  He always said he hoped to see a united Ireland during his lifetime but unfortunately that did not happen. He was buried on St.Patrick's day, 1989 wearing the medal he received from the president of Ireland for his military service. There is a book Tragedies of Kerry, printed in 1924 but reissued in 1998 that names and tells the stories of many of the Kerrymen during that era. May they never be forgotten. Marguerite -----Original Message----- From: Ray Marshall <raymarsh@mninter.net> To: Kerry List <IRL-Kerry@rootsweb.com> Sent: Sun, 7 Oct 2007 4:50 pm Subject: [IRL-KERRY] FW: Republican Chapter closes with burial of War of Independence veteran from Kerry Subject: Republican Chapter closes with burial of War of Independence eteran from Kerry Maybe now "they can all get along." Here's a few articles on the life, nternment, death and interment of Dan "Ballygamboon" Keating from astlemaine. The Independent: hapter closes with burial of war veteran Saturday October 06 2007 TO a lone piper's strains of 'The Croppy Boy', the coffin of the last eteran of the War of Independence, 105-year-old Dan "Ballygamboon" Keating, as yesterday lowered into the grave alongside the church in which he had een baptised in 1902 near Castlemaine, Co Kerry. Dan Keating, the patron of epublican Sinn Fein since 2004, was a man who was "living history"; he was he comrade of those killed in atrocities of Ballyseedy, Countess Bridge illarney and Cahersiveen; he had seen friends die on hunger strikes and had een interned himself several times. He was "an inspiration to Republicans," Ruairi O Bradaigh, president of the arty, said in a lengthy graveside oration before around 600 mourners at iltallagh cemetery. Normally thick on the ground at Kerry funerals, Kerry's public epresentatives, including over 50 town and county councillors, and eight of ts nine Oireachtas members stayed away from the requiem mass for the ounty's oldest person. Newly elected Senator Mark Daly was the only public epresentative in the church. Mayor of Kerry Michael Healy-Rae and ine Gael councillor Michael O'Connor, carteen, attended the removal on Thursday. In the oration broken by bouts of applause, and to a gathering in which many ore Easter lilies, Mr O Bradaigh said Dan Keating had never wavered from is belief that "1916 was right, 1916 was justified"; he stood by a united reland and an end to the British presence in Ireland. "Dan Keating, as we know, always gave it straight from the shoulder: He egarded the so-called peace process as a surrender process," Mr O Bradaigh aid to applause. He would not accept any British government presence in Ireland, regardless f how it was presented. The ceremonies at the graveside were watched by several plain clothes etectives. The parish priest of Kiltallagh, Fr Luke Roche concelebrated the funeral ass with Monsignor Dan Riordan of St John's Church in Tralee where Dan eating travelled by bus to get weekday daily mass. He extended sympathies to Jack and Eileen Keating, nephew and niece-in-law ho had taken such "loving care" of Dan for 27 years. ttp://www.independent.ie/national-news/chapter-closes-with-burial-of-war-ve eran-1116695.html Associated Press: RA Veteran Dies at Age 105 By SHAWN POGATCHNIK – 1 day ago DUBLIN, Ireland AP) — Dan Keating, an IRA member and the last surviving veteran of Ireland's 919-21 war of independence from Britain, has died, his nursing home and ringe political party said. He was 105. Keating joined the 1st Kerry Brigade of the Irish Republican Army in 1920 nd, as a rifleman, took part in two major 1921 ambushes that left at least ive police officers, four British soldiers and five IRA members dead. "When you are involved in an ambush with a crowd of men, you wouldn't know ho killed who. But the prospect never troubled me," Keating said in a March nterview with the British Broadcasting Corp. He joined the IRA faction that opposed the 1921 peace treaty with Britain, nd fought against former IRA colleagues in Ireland's 1922-23 civil war. He as eventually captured by Irish Free State forces and spent seven months in prisoner-of-war camp. In a June 2006 interview, Keating said he considered Free State soldiers far ore brutal than the British forces they both had fought against. "They were worse than the Black and Tans," he said, using the nickname of ritain's auxiliary troops used during the war of independence, "and they ommitted some awful atrocities. In one week they murdered 19 people — omrades I knew only too well. They were just gone overnight." He served several short terms in prison for insurrectionist activity, ncluding an aborted assassination attempt of a former general of Free State orces, and participated in a 1939-40 IRA bombing campaign of London. Keating spent his entire adult life committed to the most hard-line branch f Irish republicanism on offer. He said Ireland should never be at peace ntil the border dividing the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland — oth states he considered illegitimate — was eliminated and the island nited under one government. In 1970, he switched his allegiance from the "Official" IRA to a new, orthern Ireland-based faction called the Provisional IRA that spent 27 ears trying to overthrow the British territory. When the Provisionals called a 1997 cease-fire and supported Sinn Fein oliticians' push for a negotiated settlement, he switched support to a reakaway faction, Republican Sinn Fein, that opposed compromise and backed RA dissidents' continued bombings. He became honorary patron of the fringe arty in 2004. Republican Sinn Fein president Ruairi O Bradaigh said Keating was committed o the cause "to the very day of his death and an inspiration to all true epublicans." Keating opposed the existence of the Republic of Ireland so much that he efused to accept the state's old-age pension. In 2002 he also refused a 3,500 award from President Mary McAleese that is offered to all Irish itizens who reach age 100; Keating argued that she wasn't the real resident of Ireland. Keating denounced the past 15 years' peacemaking efforts in Northern Ireland s "a joke." He appeared in a 2007 newspaper ad appealing to Sinn Fein not o begin cooperating with police, the step that preceded this year's rise of new Catholic-Protestant administration in the British territory. Keating had no immediate survivors. He will be buried Friday in Killtallagh emetery, County Kerry, following a funeral Mass at St. Carthage's Catholic hurch. ttp://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hf8Dv9Kf2AbqsSV-wlcrJ-iK8V1gD8S2M9AG1 BBC News: rish Civil War veteran dies at 105 The last surviving IRA veteran of the Irish War of Independence and Civil ar has died at the age of 105. Dan Keating died peacefully near his home in County Kerry. Diarmaid Fleming ooks back on his life. Meeting the dapper Dan Keating, it could be difficult to reconcile the mmaculately dressed man with his revolutionary past. Looking probably more like a fit 75-year-old rather than a man of 105 years f age, unless you knew his background, it could be hard to imagine the entlemanly Dan as the last link to the revolutionary violence which gave irth to the modern Irish nation. But once the pleasantries of tea and brief discourse over the weather or erry's latest football 7victory were over, when visiting him at his home in astlemaine near where he was born, the subject of politics was never far way. Eighty six years after the Irish War of Independence, while the mainstream epublican movement had embraced compromise through power-sharing with nionists in Stormont, Dan Keating's views had changed little from the days e fought British forces in the hills and towns of Kerry. In a BBC interview in March, he said that a united Ireland remained his olitical goal: "You'll have no peace in Ireland until the people of the 32 ounties of Ireland elect a government without interference from England." Dan Keating was born in 1902 on a small farm near in Castlemaine in County erry, the eldest of seven. His uncles were militants involved in attacks on English landlords' agents uring land disputes in the 19th century. But he said that in his early youth, Kerry was peaceful until the 1916 aster Rising. Relations with the large British military garrison in Tralee were good, here a soldier from Lancashire who enjoyed music was welcomed to sing in he local pubs. When one of Dan's own cousins who was in the British Army overstayed his ome leave, two uncles were arrested after beating up a visiting military oliceman inquiring as to his whereabouts. But the injured soldier refused to give evidence against the two Kerrymen, aving them from certain jail and earning the respect of locals. "He didn't want any trouble," said Dan. The execution of the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising rapidly changed the tmosphere to one of hatred and war, he said. Working in a bar in Tralee, he joined the IRA youth wing, acting as an ntelligence agent, and helping move weapons. He said it was a fervour of revolt and youthful excitement rather than olitical motivation which got him involved. "We were mad for it. It was the thing to do at the time. There was a wave nd you got caught up with it. All the people you knew were involved," he aid. He graduated to the IRA on turning 18, and took part in ambushes in which en from both his own and the British side died. He set up one ambush where several policemen were killed near his home, but ould not be drawn on whether he himself had killed, saying he did not know n the fog of war. "When you are involved in an ambush with a crowd of men, you wouldn't know ho killed who. "But the prospect never troubled me. You were fighting for a just cause and nce you have that in the forefront, it never troubled you," he added. He said it was a war to the death for both sides. "You had to wipe the enemy off the face of the earth, that was your job to o." A truce with the British ended the War of Independence in 1921, but the reaty led to the partition of Ireland. The IRA fought on, with Dan on the losing side in the bitter Civil War gainst the Free State Army which followed immediately. He was to serve the first of several stretches in prison, interned in the urragh Camp. While many IRA men left Ireland for good, unable to gain work in a land run y their civil war enemies, Dan stayed and got steady work as a barman. He remained active in the IRA in Kerry, and was part of an IRA squad which ttempted to assassinate the Irish fascist leader Eoin O'Duffy on his way to rally in Tralee in 1933. A disastrous plan by the IRA to cause sabotage in England during World War I - the S-Plan - brought Dan to England where he led the IRA in London, aking part in bombings of commercial premises and power-stations by night, hile he worked as a barman in The Strand in London by day. Prison When detectives came knocking on his door, he told him the Dan Keating they ere looking for had already left on a passing bus, and made it back to reland after giving them the slip. But more jail awaited on his return, with a second stretch in the Curragh nternment camp. He left the IRA on his release, he said after a clear-out of the "old uard", and settled down with a new wife who was a regular visitor to him in rison - and who with no hint of irony he said was even more militant than imself. He continued to fundraise and help republican causes, even storing weapons n his house despite an unsuspecting near neighbour being a senior oliceman. Working in the Comet Bar in Dublin's northside, he was an active trade nionist in the bar worker's union. A non-drinker until his 50s, he took his first drink after a row with the eetotal Pioneer Total Abstinence Association whose pin he had sported as a ifelong member. At a consultation meeting called by the government to relax pub opening ours, Dan was shocked when the teetotal organisation backed plans to engthen pub opening hours in opposition to the barworkers' union. His response was typically militant. "I took the pin off and fired it at them. I walked out of the meeting with he union leader Walter Byrne, and both of us had a glass of sherry," he aid. He retired back to Castlemaine after his wife died in the the late 1970s, ut continued to visit Dublin for big gaelic football and hurling matches, ttending over 150 All-Ireland finals in his lifetime, most likely a record. Walking several miles a day until just weeks before his death, he attributed is long life to moderation, never smoking, a good diet and lack of stress. And his secret for living to 105? "I always kept going and never worried about things. People should live heir life and not worry about things, and if they have any favourite astimes, they should keep at them," he said. Independent and fit, he travelled on his own by bus on a two-hour journey to ork to the premiere of Ken Loach's film, the Wind that Shakes the Barley in 006, meeting the British director afterwards to voice his approval in eclaring the film as an accurate portrayal of the fighting he was involved n himself. While he only drank an occasional Benedictine brandy, and detested swearing, is recommendation of moderation did not apply to politics. He remained an unreconstructed militant, left Sinn Fein in 1986 when it oted to end its ban on taking seats in the Irish parliament, and became a atron of the breakaway Republican Sinn Fein. Irish President He said he refused to meet Irish President Mary McAleese to receive a cheque n his 100th birthday because of her declaration of a desire to invite the ueen to Ireland during her term of office, and attacked the Sinn Fein eadership for entering into power-sharing in Stormont this year. Shortly before his death, he said he did not mind that his views were in the inority. "We are passing through a phase, the youth of Ireland - all they want is a ay packet and a good time," he said. "I don't mind because I meet a lot of people who think the very same as me nd we are very happy to be a minority. "We feel that we have a duty to hand it down to future generations," he aid. His passing marks the end of the last direct link to the turbulent and iolent birth of the modern Irish nation, as he was the last IRA veteran of he War of Independence. The muted response to his death of Irish politicians who would not have hared his politics would probably be, for Dan Keating, a fitting epitaph. ttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7026951.stm Irish Examiner: ar of Independence veteran laid to rest 5/10/2007 - 16:29:30 Tributes were paid today at the funeral of the last survivor of the War of ndependence. Dan Keating died aged 105 on Tuesday after a short illness and was laid to est 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 hile in his teens and remained a steadfast hard-line republican throughout is life. In the War of Independence he fought in the IRA’s Kerry brigades against the lack and Tans. Keating, an IRA rifleman, was involved in two major attacks on the uxiliaries, at Castlemaine and Castleisland, where up to 12 British troops ere killed along with several IRA men. Later he fought against the the Free tate forces in the Civil War in Limerick and Tipperary. Keating was made patron of hard-line Republican Sinn Fein in 2002 and party resident Ruairi O’Bradaigh paid tribute to him at the funeral. “During his long, healthy and adventurous lifetime, Dan has seen many splits nd deviations from Republican principles, but he had remained loyal and rue, and there is no more fitting recipient of this honour than this noble on of Kerry,” he said. In the early 1920s he was interned in Portlaoise jail and later in the urragh. He was also jailed in the 1930s on several occasions and after oining the small-scale IRA sabotage campaign in England in 1939 he returned ome and was again interned without trial at the Curragh 1940-44. In his last years he refused the €2,500 centenarians award over President ary McAleese’s increasingly close relations with the British royal family. ttp://www.irishexaminer.com/breaking/index.aspx?c=ireland&jp=mhmhauidojkf ------------------------------ o unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to IRL-KERRY-request@rootsweb.com ith the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of he message ________________________________________________________________________ Email and AIM finally together. You've gotta check out free AOL Mail! - http://mail.aol.com