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by Karen Trench

Kerry Links with the 1916 Rising

Important events happened in Kerry in 1916 which were vital to the success or failure of the Rising outside Dublin. In what is believed to be one of the first tragedies of the Easter Rising, radio operator Con Keating, of Renard, Caherciveen, along with Charles Monahan from Belfast and Donal Sheehan from Newcastlewest, drowned when their car took a wrong turn in misty weather conditions. The driver survived.

A second Caherciveen man, Denis Daly was also selected to travel by train from Dublin to Killarney on Good Friday morning with Keating, Monahan and Sheehan. It was arranged that they would then travel from Killarney to Caherciveen by car. Denis Daly continued his journey to Caherciveen in the first car and the three others in the second car. Denis Daly was not aware that his three comrades had drowned until he returned to Dublin on Easter Saturday morning. His witness statement to the Bureau of Military History in 1948 gives a detailed account of the tragic and disastrous event. 

These men travelling from Dublin to Kerry had been selected for their knowledge about radio equipment and transmissions.  Con Keating was a radio expert and had been a radio officer on a number of ships. Charles Monahan was a mechanic and a wireless installation expert and Donal Sheehan had worked at the War Office and knew the Admiralty codes.

The group were to seize control of a wireless receiving and transmitting set from the wireless college owned by Maurice Fitzgerald. From there, the plan was that they would signal to the British Navy that a German naval attack was going to happen off the Scottish coast. The purpose of this would be to distract the British Navy away from the Kerry coast, so that the Aud could land at Fenit with 20,000 German rifles and 10 machine guns and several million rounds of ammunition.

Unfortunately, shortly after leaving Killarney railway station as they travelled to Caherciveen, the second car  drove off the pier at Ballykissane near Killorglin, on the night of Friday April 21^st  and Keating, Monahan and Sheehan  were drowned.

Con Keating was from a strong nationalist background and had joined the Irish Volunteers on October 25, 1914.

Con’s 1916 medal along with his volunteer belt are on display in Kerry County Museum.

The GAA field in Caherciveen is named after Con Keating.

On Friday morning, April 21^st the German submarine, U19 carrying Roger Casement, Captain Robert Monteith and Daniel J. Bailey reached the planned meeting point with the German arms ship, the Aud.

They were to link up with Austin Stack in Tralee, to ensure that the weapons would be distributed throughout the country to coincide with the Easter Rising in Dublin on Easter Sunday. Austin Stack was the leader of the Irish Volunteers in Kerry.

Patrick Pearse had visited Tralee on 27^th February 1916. He met Austin Stack and informed him that plans had been prepared by the IRB's military council for a rebellion. He told him that arms were to be landed at Fenit pier on Easter Sunday or Monday, and that the Tralee Volunteers were to be responsible for co-ordinating this operation. He said that the landed arms were to be used firstly to arm the Kerry Volunteers and then distributed to the Clare, Cork, Galway, and Limerick Volunteers.

Austin Stack secretly and meticulously prepared for the operation. These preparations are well described in the witness statement given by his wife Úna Stack to the Bureau of Military History in 1949.

Unaware that the Aud was arriving three days earlier than the planned date of 23^rd April, Austin Stack failed to make contact with the ship as it did not have any radio equipment.

His carefully prepared arrangements were further upset by the unexpected arrival of Sir Roger Casement onto Banna Strand on Good Friday, April 21^st.

There was a change in the plan to land the arms at Fenit on Easter Sunday. Instead, the Aud anchored off Tralee Bay early on Good Friday morning while Casement, Monteith and Bailey landed in a dinghy from the submarine onto Banna Strand.

 Casement had been ill for some time before the journey and was far too weak to travel or run. He took refuge in ‘McKenna’s Fort’ near Banna, while Bailey and Monteith tried to make contact with the local IRB. However, the RIC in Ardfert were alerted and hours after landing, Casement was arrested at McKenna’s Fort.

Monteith and Bailey travelled to Tralee, where Bailey was arrested. Monteith made his way to Cork.

Monument in McKenna’s Fort commemorating the arrest of Casement there

That day, the Kerry Volunteers suffered another fatal blow with the arrest of Austin Stack. That Good Friday evening, pretending that he wanted to meet a comrade detained by the RIC, Con Collins, he walked into the police barracks in Tralee and was arrested. This was a disaster for the local Volunteers as they were depending on Austin Stack for orders to mobilise.