Keating, Patrick William , Connaught Rangers attached Royal Munster Fusiliers, Lieutenant Royal Irish Rifles, Captain Royal Irish Rifles ,Major
1886 Oct 13.. Born Ennistimon son of James Keating and Alice O'Byrne
1912 Jun 12. Married in Dublin to Angela Murtagh
1913 May 24. Son Victor born
1913 Apr 26. 4th Battalion, The Connaught Rangers, Patrick William Keating to be Second Lieutenant (on probation).
1914 Nov 5. Son Stephen born
1914 Oct 31. A draft of 50 Other Ranks left the 3rd Battalion at Kinsale to join the 2nd Battalion. They were conducted to Cork by 2nd Lieutenant F M S Gibson and handed over to Lieutenant Keatinge, 4th Battalion, The Connaught Rangers to be taken on to Holyhead and handed over to the Officer to conduct them over seas 31 Oct 1914
1919 Served in North Russia MID
From the Witness Statement, Keating was based in Galway.
WS 1729
About October, 1920, the British set up a centralised Intelligence depot and took over a house in Dominick St. Capt. Keating, a British army officer, was in complete charge, the object being to pool all the information there, have it assessed and dealt with immediately. Their code word was 0/C Forting. This depot had a complete over-riding authority over all branches of the British forces army, R.I.C., Black and Tans, Auxiliaries and navy, All or one could be directed to act on instructions from this depot. I had a friend named Michael Brennan, an ex-British officer who was also friendly with Keating. He, Brennan, who was in the Congested Districts Board, supplied me with many items of useful information such as Keating, fitting, instructing and sending out agents throughout the country disguised as tramps or otherwise, some of whom never returned and others who brought back useless information. I had another useful agent in the National Bank named Kirwan, who also kept me supplied with material about Keating, who had his bank account with them and was always well overdrawn. In view of this, I was working on the idea of buying information from Keating, especially to find out who were actually responsible for the murder of Father Griffin. This we failed to find out, as it was an inside job carried out by the Auxiliaries. Keating was heard to boast in the County Club during these negotiations that he was going to walk the Shinners into it. In any case, I think he could not find out the information. As I said earlier, it was an inside job, concocted and carried out by the local company of Auxies stationed at Lenaboy, Taylors Hill. Together with the general work of intelligence in the brigade, I succeeded in compiling a list of the home addresses of British army and Auxiliary officers in England, had it sent up to G.H.Q. and also to neighbouring brigades.
Informers in 20th Century Ireland: The Costs of Betrayal By Angela Duffy
It was during the Irish War for Independence that William Joyce (later hanged by the British fas a traitor in 1946) was recruited by Capt. Patrick William Keating as a courier for British Army intelligence in Galway, then fighting against the Irish Republican Army. He was known to have hung around with Black and Tans at Lenaboy Castle, which reportedly resulted in the Irish Republican Army dispatching a volunteer, Michael Molloy, to murder Joyce on his way home from school in December 1921, although minors were normally excluded from being executed by the IRA, usually being expelled or ostracised. Joyce reputedly survived only because his father had moved his family to another house on a different route. Capt. Keating arranged for William Joyce to be mustered into the Worcester Regiment soon after, taking him out of the dangerous situation in Ireland to Norton Barracks. A few months later he was discharged when it was found out he was underage.
1921 Apr 22. R.U. Rif.— Capt. P. W. Keating is seed. under the provisions of Art. 102 B, Royal Warrant, whilst specially empld.
1922 Son Patrick born
1922 Directory entry Lt 4th Connaught Rangers, living at 36 Berea terrace, Rathfarnham
1922 Feb 2, R U Rifles. Capt. P. W. Keating is restd. to the estabt.
1922 May 20. Died when SS Egypt sunk. SS Egypt was a P&O ocean liner. She sank after a collision with Seine in the English Channel. 252 people were rescued from the 338 passengers and crew aboard at the time. A subsequent salvage operation recovered most of the cargo of gold and silver.
