Richard Keogh, a veteran soldier who served throughout the entire duration of World War I, was laid to rest in an anonymous grave. Recently, a headstone was erected in his honour.
Keogh became a member of the 6th Inniskilling Dragoon Guards, a military cavalry sector, back in 1905. He was posted in India at the outbreak of the war in 1914 and remained in duty until the Peace Agreement in November 1918. Keogh was fortunate enough to make it through the war without injuries, unlike his brother James – an Irish Guards serviceman, who tragically lost his life to a trench motor bomb in France in February 1918.
Keogh married his young wife Alice at St Catherine’s Church on Meath Street, Dublin, in August of the same year. Following the Peace Agreement, he found himself in a dispute with a higher-ranking officer outside a Belgian pub and was subsequently demoted. Early in 1919, Keogh was discharged but managed to secure one of the ‘homes for heroes’ constructed post World War I for Army veterans and their families, located in Killester Village, Dublin.
Keogh passed away in 1945 and was buried in an anonymous grave at Grangegorman Military Cemetery, Dublin since his family couldn’t afford a headstone. Nearly 8 decades later, Simon Kehoe, Keogh’s great-nephew and a descendant of James Keogh, has rectified this oversight by commissioning a headstone that was revealed last Friday.
Simon Keogh acknowledged that his great-uncle fathered three children – a boy named James, and two daughters whose names remain unknown to him. Despite his efforts, he has been unable to find anything regarding other potential offspring. Mr. Keogh, now 75, along with his own son, paid a visit to the Grangegorman Cemetery on Friday to honour their relative.
Simon expressed his discomfort with the thought of his great-uncle’s resting place being an anonymous grave and mentioned many from the Killester Estate share similar fate. His investigations concluded with the intent of creating a lasting tribute in Dublin in memory of his great-uncle.