Daniel "Dan" Keating (Irish: Dónal Céitinn, 2 January 1902 – 2 October 2007) was a life-long Irish republican and patron of Republican Sinn Féin. At the time of death he was Ireland's oldest man and the last surviving veteran of the Irish War of Independence.
Dan Keating was born and raised in the townland of Ballygamboon, Castlemaine, County Kerry. He received his education in local schools, including the Christian Brothers' School in Tralee. Tralee was also the place where Keating did his apprenticeship. During this time he became a skillful Gaelic football player in his native Kerry.
Keating joined Fianna Éireann in 1918. In 1920, during the Irish War of Independence, he joined the Boherbee B Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Kerry Brigade, Irish Republican Army. On 21 April 1921, Royal Irish Constabulary Constable Denis O’Loughlin was shot dead in Knightly public house in Tralee. Keating, Jimmy O’Connor and Percy Hanafin were suspected of the killing, and were forced to go on the run. On 1 June, Keating was involved in an ambush between Castlemaine and Milltown which claimed the lives of 5 RIC men. On 10 July, a day before the truce between the IRA and British forces, Keating’s unit was involved in a gun battle with the British Army near Castleisland. This confrontation resulted in the deaths of four British soldiers and five IRA Volunteers.
Dan Ronan (born c. 1959) is the Senior Director of Communications, Media Relations and Marketing at the American Bus Association, a Washington D.C. trade association representing the Motorcoach, Tourism and Travel Industry. He joined the ABA in June 2011 after three years as the Media/Corporate Communications and Community Affairs Manager for the American Automobile Association of Texas/New Mexico, based in Irving, Texas. Ronan was hired at AAA in 2008 after a more than 20-year career in network and major market television.
Dan Ronan was raised in the Chicago neighborhood of Rogers Park by his grandparents, Leo and Agnes McDevitt. A lifelong Cubs fan, while a freshman in high school, he regularly helped clean Wrigley Field after classes helping to pay his tuition for High School. As an adult, Ronan became close friends with retired Cubs, Hall of Fame Baseball Broadcaster Jack Brickhouse. One of Ronan's sons is named Jack in honor of Brickhouse.
Ronan graduated with a B.S. degree in 2003 in Agriculture Journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Madison after attending the University from 1978-1982. His college education was interrupted after the unexpected death of his 20 year old, younger brother Tim, whose life was taken when the car he was a passenger in was run off the road by a suspected drunken driver. Ronan later finished the five credits and earned his diploma. He has taken additional studies in aviation at Georgia State University and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, where he was trained as an airplane crash investigator. In April, 2012 he was accepted into the Masters Degree Journalism Program at Kent State University with an anticipated graduation in 2014.