Clonard Keating

By October, the attrition rate was reported to be 63% of the Europeans, officers and NCOs, dead or invalided home because of the climate and disease.

When it came time to return to Lafagu, on October 9, Keating went with 14 of his troops to the island village of Hela, near Yelwa, for additional canoes.

In response, Keating killed the king of the village, expropriated the canoes he needed, and abducted the men required to work them.

[4] In response to the killings, colonial troops arrived at Hela the following week, on 16 October 1898, and attacked and razed the village.

An easel was set up in front of the tree bearing pictures of both Queen Victoria and Keating, the whole draped in the Leinsters' colours.

[8] In 1900 a memorial plaque was unveiled to honour Keating in Saint Luke's (Anglican) Cathedral, Halifax, subsequently lost to fire.

At Aldershot, England, Keating's name was included on a tablet to the memory of all the men of the West African Frontier Force who died or were killed in Nigeria.