Books

A High Meadow is full of comedy, tragedy and melodrama, all centred around the village of Ballybobawn and Eddie Drannaghy, the ‘Ram of God’ (a former trainee priest who was cynically seduced by the American wife of his cousin, fathered a child and was forced to leave the seminary), and his brothers Murt and Will. [...]

In this volume are hundreds of short pieces which represent the distillation of the experience of a funny, witty, wise and passionate observer of the bright tapestry of Irish life. All human life is here, and Keane tells its story in an astonishing procession of remarkable characters and in rare humorous glimpses of his own [...]

Tull MacAdoo TD is kept busy procuring jobs and IRA pensions for deserving voters and keeping his spendthrift son under control. Somehow he must also contest an election and save his reputation while holding fast to his personal philosophy: “Forage between honesty and crookedness and do the best you can”. Martin O’Mora, the Parish Priest [...]

A further collection of John B. Keanes highly successful letters. This book includes Letters of a Civic Guard, Letters of an Irish Publican, Letters of a Country Postman and Letters to the Brain. Four very different people in four very different circumstances and the thread that binds them is John B. Keanes skill at recognising [...]

Durango is an adventure story about the great October cattle drive of Tubberlick. Set in rural Ireland during the Second World War, this novel features the themes of love, sex, money and betrayal. Durango has been made into a film starring Brenda Fricker, Patrick Bergin and Pat Laffin. To see other books by John B. [...]

The best and most humorous lines in all John B. Keane’s writings, selected by himself and presented in convenient small format. The book includes the classics: ‘A play about sex in Ireland is always ahead of its time.’ ‘He thought felo de se was a chap from Ballybunion.’ ‘The secret of sex is not to [...]

Sharon’s Grave deals with a man’s ruthless lust for land, which overrides all family loyalties, and can ultimately lead to tragedy. ISBN: 9781898175025

There are more shades to John B. Keane’s humour than there are colours in the rainbow. Compassion, shrewdness and a glorious sense of fun and roguery are evident in this collection, which brings together all John B’s short stories. In this collection are gems such as ‘A Hanging’, a tale of accusation by silence in [...]

Featuring new notes written by English teacher and daughter of John B. Keane, Joanna Keane O’Flynn. Suitable for both Senior and Junior cycle classes. Sive is a young and beautiful orphan who lives with her uncle Mike, his wife Mena and his mother Nanna. A local matchmaker, Thomasheen Seán Rua, wants Sive to marry an [...]

‘A Chastitute is a person without holy orders who has never lain down with a woman… rustic celibate by force of circumstance.’ John Bosco, who ‘hasn’t the makings of a dacent sin in him’, is a chastitute, a bachelor farmer and all he is searching for is a plain decent woman to share his life. [...]

This is the story of Dan Murray, who emigrated to England in 1952. He finds work as a building labourer and in time he becomes a building contractor. John B. Keane captures the turbulent, bawdy, anarchic life of Irish contractors and labourers as they try to make it big in England. Told in his usual [...]

The Field is John B. Keane’s fierce and tender study of the love a man can have for land and the ruthless lengths he will go to in order to obtain the object of his desire. It is dominated by the Bull McCabe, one of the most famous characters in Irish writing today. An Oscar-nominated [...]

John B. Keane was a spirited, charismatic and generous man who will forever occupy a special niche in the hearts and minds of Irish people everywhere. This is a fascinating collection of many well-known John B. Keane poems and, for the first time, his songs, selected and edited by his daughter Joanna Keane-OFlynn. It includes; [...]

Many Young Men of Twenty is a musical play which deals with emigration and the lack of jobs at home that forced people to leave their native Ireland for England. It describes the emigrants longing for home. Moll is a hilarious and highly successful comedy about life in an Irish country presbytery. When a presbytery [...]

In The Year of the Hiker an absentee father sends shock waves through his family when he returns home after twenty years. In The Change in Mame Fadden, a woman is torn between repairing her marriage and leading a life of freedom on the streets. The Highest House on the Mountain examines the tension between [...]