Banna Strand, also known as Banna Beach, is situated in Tralee Bay

Tralee Bay

Tralee Bay is located in on the west coast of County Kerry, Ireland. It is situated between Kerry Head on the north side and the Maharees on the west and extends eastwards as far as the bridge at Blennerville. Several small rivers feed into the bay through the town of Tralee...

. It is an Atlantic Ocean

Atlantic Ocean

The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...

 beach extending from Ballyheigue

Ballyheigue

Ballyheigue, officially Ballyheige , is a coastal village in County Kerry, Ireland. It is approximately north of Tralee on the R551. Its name is pronounced ....

 Beach at the Blackrock in the North to Barrow Beach at its southern edge, located in County Kerry

County Kerry

Kerry means the "people of Ciar" which was the name of the pre-Gaelic tribe who lived in part of the present county. The legendary founder of the tribe was Ciar, son of Fergus mac Róich. In Old Irish "Ciar" meant black or dark brown, and the word continues in use in modern Irish as an adjective...

. It is located approx 12 km (7 mi) north west of Tralee. It features sand dunes along its entire length which rise up to 12 metres (40 ft). The mountains of the Dingle Peninsula

Dingle Peninsula

The Dingle Peninsula is the northernmost of the major peninsulae in County Kerry. Its ends beyond the town of Dingle at Dunmore Head, the westernmost point of Ireland.-Name:...

 can be seen on the south west horizon. Many residents from Tralee make a trip to Banna Strand on the warmest summer days.

Historically, Banna Strand is associated with Roger Casement

Roger Casement

Roger David Casement —Sir Roger Casement CMG between 1911 and shortly before his execution for treason, when he was stripped of his British honours—was an Irish patriot, poet, revolutionary, and nationalist....

 who was captured on 21 April 1916, having landed from a German U-Boat

U-boat

U-boat is the anglicized version of the German word U-Boot , itself an abbreviation of Unterseeboot , and refers to military submarines operated by Germany, particularly in World War I and World War II...

. Casement was involved in an attempt to land arms for Irish Republicans from the German vessel the Aud

Aud (ship)

Aud was the cover name of a German ship, Libau, that carried arms to Ireland as part of the preparation for the Easter Rising in Ireland in 1916.-Introduction:...

. A monument for Casement and another man Robert Monteith stands near the dunes with the inscription:

"At a spot on Banna beach adjacent to here Roger Casement - Humanitarian & Irish revolutionary leader - Robert Monteith & a third man came ashore from a German submarine on Good Friday morning 21 April 1916 in furthering the cause of Irish freedom."

The mysterious 'third man' was Daniel Julian Bailey, a soldier in the Royal Irish Rifles in the British army who when a POW was recruited (as Daniel Beverley) into the 'Casement Brigade'.
The monument was erected in 1966 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the landing. A decision was taken by the 1966 Banna Strand committee to deliberately omit the name of the "third man" from the monument because, following his capture, he turned "King's evidence." The sod was turned, for the construction of the monument, by Florrie Monteith, the daughter of Robert Monteith. Florrie was also the author of a biography of her father that was entitled "The Mystery Man of Banna Strand."

Horizon Radio, a Kerry radio station from the 1980s, was located in Banna. Banna Beach Hotel was located nearby until it closed in 2002 and was replaced by the Banna Beach Leisure centre. In the 1990s the car parking area was moved to the beach from behind the dunes.

External links

From RTÉ

RTE

RTÉ is the abbreviation for Raidió Teilifís Éireann, the public broadcasting service of the Republic of Ireland.RTE may also refer to:* Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, 25th Prime Minister of Turkey...

Archives. 1966 interview with Raimund Weisbach, captain of U19 in 1916. (Scroll down to News: German Seamen Arrive for 1916 Commemoration)