Bernard J. McKeon

Bernard “Barney” J. McKeon was born in County Leitrim, served in the United States Army from 1949 to 1951, and became a building contractor and Irish republican activist in New York. After refusing to answer a Brooklyn federal grand jury’s questions about arms shipments to Northern Ireland, he spent five months in the Metropolitan Correctional Center and was released on March 17, 1980. Indicted under the Gun Control Act in 1982, McKeon was acquitted on eight counts but convicted of conspiracy. He later served a three-year federal sentence, including time at Danbury. McKeon died in County Sligo on June 30, 1998.