John B. Keane was born in Listowel in 1928. Educated at St. Michael's College he has worked as a chemist's assistant, assistant to a fowl-buyer, furnace-operator and clerk. Son of a widely respected teacher W. B. Keane, John B. started to write seriously when he returned from England in 1953. He owns and runs a public house in Listowel, is married and has three sons.
He has written many successful plays, the best known being
Sive, Sharon's Grave, The Highest House on the Mountain, No More in Dust
and now
The Man From Clare
. His other works include
The Street
(poems) and
Many Young Men of Twenty
a musical play. His works have been produced in Cork, Dublin, Belfast, Glasgow, London and New York. He is resident dramatist of the Southern Theatre Group, one of Ireland's leading theatrical organisations. He writes a weekly column for the
Limerick Leader
and writes frequently for Radio. Critics are keenly divided about his place in theatre but nobody will deny that he is the best-known and most influential and prolific Irish writer of his generation. He (his own words) dislikes stuffed tomatoes but would swing for pigs' puddings, is working at the moment on a short novel, his first.