Sir,—Míle buíochas to David Prendergast for his excellent summation (HI 31.2, March/April 2023) of the events surrounding the arguably unnecessary April 1923 death of Volunteer Tom Keating. Along with other West Waterford families (Mooney, Mansfield, Fraher and the Cullinane ‘rebel sisters’), the Keatings were among the most active and suffered grievously during the revolutionary period and afterwards. The entire family occupies a special place in the Deise Republican pantheon. The four Cumann na mBan sisters (Bridget, Marcella, Margaret and Lena) provided a safe house for the men of the column under my father’s command (George Lennon, the youngest, with Roger McCorley, flying column leader), while also attending to their laundry needs. Father Michael and Uncle John did dispatch work. Mother Margaret mended the socks of the men on the run and looked after the repair of their shoes. Willie participated in ambushes with brothers Pat (killed at the Burgery ambush) and Tom. Sadly, the men of the West Waterford Brigade have been largely ignored until the most recent centenary events, the two books of Tommy Mooney and the publication of Terence O’Reilly’s Rebel heart (2009), inter alia. Truth be told, my father was involved in some seventeen engagements (Limerick, Clare, Cork, Waterford) against enemy forces, including the first post-Easter Week 1916 attack, with Liam Lynch, on regular British military at Fermoy’s Wesleyan Chapel.—Yours etc.,
IVAN LENNON
Rochester, New York