A thread on Tom Keogh: Richmond Barracks, following the birth of the Free State, was renamed Keogh Barracks in honour of Tom Keogh, a member of ‘The Squad’, an IRA assassination team during the War of Independence. Tom was 23 years old at the time of his death in the Civil War.

Keogh came from Rathduffmore in Wicklow, and joined the Dublin Brigade of the Irish Volunteers in 1915. Following his involvement in the Easter Rising, he was one of the hundreds of rebels and suspected rebels kept in the gymnasium of the Richmond Barracks.

The rebels kept in the gymnasium were inspected by the ‘G Division’ the intelligence division of the Dublin Metropolitan Police. With a headquarters at Great Brunswick Street DMP station they kept the ‘Movement Of Extremist' files designed to monitor revolutionaries and radicals.

Keogh would play a leading role in the War of Independence on the streets of Dublin, working closely alongside Michael Collins. 'The Squad', as Collins hit-squad were known, operated directly under the direction of the Intelligence Department.

A number of intelligence officers from the G Division were targeted by the Squad, including men like Detective Sergeant Patrick Smith who had been instrumental in identifying leading 1916 rebels at the Richmond Barracks gymnasium.

Keogh was arrested and detained following the burning of Dublin’s Custom House in May 1921, and kept in Kilmainham Gaol. He supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 and was killed in action in the subsequent Civil War.

The bestowing of the name Keogh Barracks on Richmond Barracks was intended as a form of commemoration for a remarkable life.

Big thanks to @fallon_donal for this great thread on Tom Keogh! #historyathome