Life
1928-2002; b. 21 July, Listowel, Co. Kerry; ed. St. Michael’s College;
chemist apprentice, Northampton, 1952; married Mary O’Connor, 1955,
and settled in Listowel as publican; unsuccessfully submitted early plays
to Abbey Theatre; co-founder Listowel Players; won first prize with Sive
at first All-Ireland Festival, 1959, and was refused by Ernest Blythe
at the Abbey, only to be produced there by Joe Dowling in 1984; elected
President/Director Listowel Writers’ Week; The Field (Gemini
Prods., Olympia, 1 Nov. 1965), centred on the Bull McCabe and his son; played Olympia 1965, printed 1966; revised in two-acts
for Abbey in 1987, and again revived in 1996; founder-member of Society
of Irish Playwrights; his early plays presented by Cork-based Southern
Theatre Group; Member of Aosdana; The Field filmed (dir. Jim
Sheridan); sometime winner of PEN award for life-time achievement; his
papers were bought by TCD; d. 23 May 2002. DIW DIL WJM
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Works
Plays, Sive [first staged Listowel
1959; played in Cork by Southern Th. Group] (Dublin: Progress House 1959);
Sharon’s Grave [Southern Th. Group, Cork] (Dublin: Progress House
1960); The Highest House on the Mountain [Southern Th. Group, Cork]
(Dublin: Progress House 1961); No More in Dust (1961), unpublished;
Hut 42 [Abbey 1962] ([Dublin: Progress House] 1962; Dixon, California:
Proscenium 1968); Many Young Men of Twenty [Southern Th. Group,
Cork] (Dublin: Progress House 1961) [musical], rep. in Robert Hogan, ed.,
Seven Irish Plays (Minneapolis UP 1967) [with Sharon’s
Grave, et al.]; The Man from Clare (Cork: Mercier 1962) [childhood
obsession with sport]; The Year of the Hiker (Cork: Mercier 1963);
The Field (Cork: Mercier 1966); and Do., [new rev. text] (Cork:
Mercier 1991), 81pp.; The Rain at the End of Summer (Dublin: Progress
House 1967); Big Maggie [1969] (Cork: Mercier 1970); The Change
in Madam Fadden (Cork: Mercier 1972); Moll (Cork: Mercier 1972);
The One-Way Ticket (Illinois, Performance Publishing 1972) [one-act
play]; Values (Cork: Mercier 1973) [three ‘trivial’ one-act
plays]; The Crazy Wall (Cork: Mercier 1973); The Good Thing
(Newark: Proscenium 1978); rep. edn., Sharon’s Grave,
The Crazy Wall, and The Man from Clare (Dublin:Mercier 1995);
Moll; The Chastitude; Many Young Men of Twenty (Cork: Mercier Press
1999), 176pp. [Check: a J. B. Keane, play printed in Journal of Irish
Literature, Vol. VII, No.2.]
Fiction, Death be Not Proud (Cork: Mercier 1976); More Irish Short Stories (Cork: Mercier 1981); [The] Bodhrán Makers (Cork: Mercier 1986); Man of the Triple Name (Cork: Mercier 1984) [on matchmaking]; Owl Sandwiches (Cork: Mercier 1985) [reminiscence]; The Contractors (Cork: Mercier 1993), 319pp.; Innocent Bystanders (Cork: Mercier 1994), 158pp. [stories/pieces]; Voice of an Angel and Other Christmas Stories (Cork: Mercier 1995); Collected Short Stories (Cork: Mercier 1997).
Poetry, The Street and Other Poems (Dublin: Progress House 1961); Dán Pheadí Aindí (Dublin & Cork: Mercier Press 1977); The Street: Poems and Songs (Cork: Mercier Press 2003), 96pp.
‘Letters’ Series, Letters of a Successful TD (Cork: Mercier 1968); Letters of an Irish Parish Priest (Cork: Mercier 1972); Letters of an Irish Publican (Cork: Mercier 1974); Letters of a Love-Hungry Farmer (Cork: Mercier 1974); Letters of a Matchmaker (Cork: Mercier 1975); Letters of a Civic Guard (Cork: Mercier 1976); Letters of a Country Postman (Cork: Mercier 1977; rep. 1993), 93pp.; Letters of an Irish Minister of State (Cork: Mercier [1978]); [career of Tull McAdoo]; Letters to the Brain [?1st edn.] (Dingle: Brandon 1993); John B. Keane, John B. Keane’s Christmas (Cork: Mercier Press 1997), 188pp.
Miscellaneous, Strong Tea (Cork: Mercier 1963); Self-Portrait (Cork: Mercier 1964); The Gentle Art of Matchmaking and Other Important Things (Cork: Mercier 1973); Unlawful Sex and Other Testy Matters (Cork: Mercier 1978); also Is the Holy Ghost Really a Kerryman? and Other Items of Interest (Cork: Mercier [q.d.]); Inlaws and Outlaws (Cork: Mercier 1995), 160pp.; Pints of Porter: Selected Essays and Writings, foreword by Conor Keane (Mercier 2004), 128pp. [32 uncoll pieces]. Journal contributions incl. ‘The Best Christmas Dinner’, extract from The Voice of an Angel, in Sunday Independent (31 Dec. 1995) [backpage main section].
Collected Editions, The Celebrated Letters of John B. Keane (Cork: Mercier Press 1996) [omnibus of 5 collections]; Best of John B. Keane: Collected Humorous Writings (Cork: Mercier Press 1999), 365pp.; More Celebrated Letters (Cork: Mercier 2000), 368pp.; An Irish Christmas Feast: The Best of John B. Keane (Cork: Mercier Press 2004), 352pp.
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Criticism
Robert Hogan, ‘The Hidden Ireland of John B. Keane’, Éire-Ireland,
3, 2 (Summer 1968), pp. 14-26.
John M. Feehan, ed., Fifty Years Young, A Tribute to John B. Keane ([1978]).
John B. Gus Smith & Des Hickey, John B: The Real Keane (Cork: Mercier Press 1992), and Do. [rev. as] John B. (Dublin: Mercier Press 2002, 2004), 352pp., ills. [16pp. photos].
Gabriel Fitzmaurice, ed., Come All Good Men and True: Essays from the John B. Keane Symposium (Cork: Mercier Press 2004), 144pp.
John B. Keane: Playwright of the People (N. Kerry Literary Trust 2004).
Shirley Kelly, ‘Critics, Who Needs them!’, interview
with John B. Keane, Books Ireland, 176 (April, 1994), pp.73-74.
Joe Dowling, review of Gus Smyth & Des Hickey, John B - The Real Keane (Cork: Mercier 1992), in Irish Times, 21 Nov. 1992.
Fintan O’Toole, ‘In Primitive Territory’ (2nd Opinion, The Irish Times review column, 8 Aug. 1995.
Kathy Sheridan, interview with John B. Keane on his 73rd birthday (Irish Times, 21 July 2001), Weekend, p.1.
Obituary (The Irish Times): J. B. Keane, d. 23 May 2002.
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Notes
D. E. S. Maxwell, Modern Irish Drama (Cambridge UP 1984),
lists Sive, staged Listowel, 1951 [sic, denoting err. all other
sources] & London 1961 (printed 1959); The Man from Clare (printed
1963); Hut 42 (Abbey 1963; printed 1963); also The Year of the
Hiker (Cork: Mercier 1964); The Field, Dublin 1965, NY 1976
(Cork: Mercier 1966), and Big Maggie (Cork: Mercier 1969).
Katie Donovan, et al., ed., Ireland’s Women [Anthology] (19954), cites The Buds of Ballybunion (1978), a play; extract from Letters of a Parish Priest (1972).
Helena Sheehan, Irish Television Drama, A Society and Its Stories (RTE 1987), RTE films, Field, The, 91, 97, 100, 105, 107, 138, John B. Keane/Donall Farmer (1968); Tales of Kilnavarna [6 epis], John B. Keane, adpt. Joe O’Donnell/Bill Keating (1984); Year of the Hiker, The, 314-16, 410, 418, JB Keane/Louis Lentin (1965).
Brandon Press (Catalogue 1994) lists John B. Keane, Letters to the Brain (Brandon 1993), 157pp. [various body parts of Thomas Scam address his brain with their different interests]; J. B. Keane, Owl Sandwiches (Brandon), 125pp. [amusing anecdotes and essays, reprinted from 1985]; reprint edns. incl. The Bodhrán Makers [1986], 353pp. [0 86322 085 1], cites review: ‘This powerful and poignant novel provides John B Keane with a passport to the highest levels of Irish literature.’; The Bodhrán Makers [1994]; Man of the Triple Name [1994]; Owl Sandwiches [1994]; Letters to the Brain [1994]; and Power of the Word [1994], with cartoons by ‘Doll’.
Sive first staged by Listowel Drama Group, 2 Feb 1959, rejected
by Abbey but won all-Ireland amateur award, 1959; staged professionally
by Southern Theatre Group and received 1000 performances.
Kerry Killing: The Field is based on an actual murder of 1958 treated as ‘The Kerry Killing’ in the series Thou Shalt Not (RTE, Thurs. 24 Nov. 1994). Keane's play was film by Jim Sheridan (dir.) in what is generally thought to be his least valuable outing, though a first-feature break for Brendan Gleesone
Moll, in which the title-character is a hard-headed priest’s housekeeper who secures employment in Kerry parish, and secures her revenue by catering to the PP’s stomach and starving the two curates, gaining control of the Mass card revenue; revived at the Gaiety, Mar. 1995, with Mick Lally as the Canon, Barry McGovern as senior curate and Ronan Smith as junior; Maria McDermott Roe as Moll, Martin Dempsey as bishop (bit-part); dir. Brian de Salvo.
Revival: John B. Keane’s comedy The Matchmaker returns to the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin from 2-6 April [date?], with Anna Manahan and Des Keogh in the leading roles.
The Real Field: Leenane, Co. Galway is the location of the 30-acre farmland and cottage which was used as the setting for the film version of John B. Keane’s play The Field. The cottage failed to sell at auction at a highest bid of Ir£250,000 and was withdrawn in August 2000. The farm was capable of attracting EU headage payments of up to £22,000 if fencing problems were addressed. (Irish Times, 26 Aug. 2000.)
Kith & Kin: The actor Eamonn Keane is a brother of John B. Keane.
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The Princess Grace Irish Library of Monaco