Austin Stack

Austin Stack (December 7, 1879-April 27, 1929) was an Irish revolutionary.

Austin Stack was born in Ballymullen, Tralee, County Kerry. He was edicated at the Christian Brothers School in Tralee. At the age of fourteen he left school and became a clerk in a solicitors office. A gifted Gaelic footballer, he captained the Kerry team to All-Ireland glory in 1904. He also served as President of the Kerry GAA County Board.

He became politically active in 1908 when he joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood]]. In 1916, as commandant of the Kerry Brigade of the Irish Volunteers, he made preparations for the landing of arms by Roger Casement. He was arrested and sentenced to death for his involvemnet, however, rthis was later commuted to penal servitude for life. Stack was released under general amnesty in June 1917 and elected Sinn Féin MP for Kerry in the 1918 general election.

He opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, and took part in the subsequent Civil War. He was captured in 1923 and went on hunger strike for forty-one days before being released in July 1924. When Eamon de Valera founded Fianna Fáil in 1926 Stack remained with Sinn Féin and was re-elected to the Dáil in 1927.

Stack's health never recovered after his hunger strike and he died in a Dublin hospital on April 27, 1929. Austin Stack Park in his hometown of Tralee, one the Gaelic Athletic Association's stadia, is named in his honour.