Stephen Fuller

Stephen Fuller (1 January 1900 – 23 February 1984) was an Irish Fianna Fáil politician who served as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Kerry North constituency from 1937 to 1943.

Military records from the 1930s show, in his own hand, that he was in communication with Dublin regarding confirmation of membership in July 1922 and therefore eligibility for war pensions (Fuller became the most senior Kilflynn member upon the death of Captain George O'Shea).

[2] In 1923, he was captured by Free State troops and imprisoned in Ballymullen Barracks in Tralee by the Dublin Guard who had landed in County Kerry shortly before.

On 6 March 1923, five Free State soldiers were blown up by a booby-trapped bomb at Baranarigh Wood, Knocknagoshel, north Kerry, including long-standing colleagues of Major General Paddy O'Daly, G.O.C.

He crossed the river Lee and hid in Ballyseedy woods; he was missed amongst the carnage as disabled survivors were bombed and shot dead with automatic fire.

Paddy O'Daly's communication to Dublin about returning the bodies to relatives differed significantly from Cumann na mBan statements - which O'Daly complained about as simple propaganda - and later that of Bill Bailey, a local who'd joined the Dublin Guard, who told Ernie O'Malley that the bodies were handed over in condemned coffins as a band played jolly music.

The official investigation into the killings, was presided over by O'Daly himself, with Major General Eamon Price of GHQ and Colonel J. McGuinness of Kerry Command.

It blamed Irregulars for planting the explosives and exonerated the Irish Army soldiers, and this was read out in the Dáil by the Minister of Defence, Richard Mulcahy.

He joined Fianna Fáil, the political party founded by Republican leader Éamon de Valera in 1926 after a split from Sinn Féin.

[3] Fuller never once mentioned the Ballyseedy incident from a political platform and stated later that he bore no ill-will towards his captors or those who were involved in his attempted extrajudicial killing.