John B. Keane

Author Information
John B. Keane's Latest Book

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  • Bibliography:
    43 Books
  • First Book:
    January 1962
  • Latest Book:
    July 2023
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Book List in Order: 43 titles

  • The Man from Clare

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  • Big Maggie

    The story of Big Maggie Polpin and her attempts to keep her family together after the death of her husband is an enduring theatre favourite. The dialogue crackles with hilarious, caustic putdowns as the indomitable Maggie deals with her feckless fami...

  • Values

    • / General Fiction
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  • Crazy Wall

    In THE CRAZY WALL John B. Keane has lost none of his realistic force in creating the powerful symbol of the wall that Michael Barnett erects ostensibly to ward off tramps and other interlopers but in fact for deeper, intensely personal reasons known ...

  • Chastitute

    '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 searchin...

  • Letters of a Love-Hungry Farmer

  • Gentle Art of Matchmaking

  • Power of the Word

  • Letters of a Successful T.D.

    elevnth edition, 1987. blue covers with torn black envelope, John B. on the stamp. stain on fore egde, lightly toned page edges. A humorous peep at the correspondence of an Irish parliamentary deputy....



  • The Field, by John B Keane

    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 Bull McCabe, one of the most famous characters in Iris...

  • Moll

    Moll is a hilarious and highly successful comedy about life in an Irish country presbytery.'When a presbytery gets a new housekeeper it becomes like a country that gets a change of government, or like a family that gets a new stepmother'. Mol...

  • Letters of a Civic Guard

    Leo Molair is a member of the guards and here we find him writing to his nephew who is also a guard but of a mere two years standing. Guard Molair is a mine of information about his people and knows more about them than they know themselves. After al...

  • The Bodhran Makers: A Novel of Ireland

    A novel of Ireland by the bestselling author of The Field

    A saga of the struggle between hard-living farmers and the Church, The Bodhran Makers is set in rural Ireland in the 1950s. The Bodhran (pronounced bough-rawn) makers of the title are "...

  • The RAM of God and Other Stories

  • Stories from a Kerry Fireside

  • The Contractors

    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...

  • Sharon's Grave

    Sharon's Grave deals with a man's ruthless lust for land, which overrides all family loyalties, and can ultimately lead to tragedy. In The Crazy Wall, John B. Keane loses none of his realistic force in creating the powerful symbol of the wall...

  • Letters of a Country Postman

  • Innocent Bystanders and Other Stories



  • High Meadow

    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 chil...

  • Durango

    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 produced as a film starring Brenda F...

  • Irish Stories for Christmas

    The author of The Field and The Bodhran Makers now provides a charming collection of 15 stories--rich, colorful tales of Irish holiday traditions and ordinary people. "Country humor, holiday spirit, and insightful characterization are found in abunda...

  • RAM OF GOD

    Ireland's premier novelist, the author of The Bodhra+a7n Makers, presents a story of greed and love set in a close-knit Irish community and featuring a man whose study for the priesthood is interrupted by a seduction. Tour. IP. ...

  • More Irish Stories for Christmas

  • Best of John B Keane, Ireland's Favourite Author

    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 p...

  • Letters of an Irish Publican

    • / General Fiction
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  • Irish Stories

    Keane, famous for his clear-sighted and humorous tales about his native land, writes with what "Booklist" has called "the grace and fine ear for the Irish dialect that we expect". In this collection of his fiction, Keane reveals the qualities that ha...

  • A Christmas Surprise

    • / General Fiction
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  • The Celebrated Letters of John B. Keane Vol 2

    A further collection of John B. Keane's 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...



  • An Irish Christmas

    One of Ireland's most beloved writers offers seventeen new holiday stories drawn from the rich traditions and folklore of his country, including "The Greatest Wake of All," "The Seven Year Trance," "The Hermit of Scartnabrock," and "Awlingal Princess...

  • The Bodhran Makers

    This powerful and poignant novel provides John B. Keane with a passport to the highest levels of Irish literature.-Irish Press. ""At once a rueful elegy to a vanished spirit and a comic celebration.""-Publishers Weekly. ""Furious, raging, passionate ...

  • The Street

    (Selected & Edited by Joanna Keane-O'Flynn) 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-k...

  • Dan Paddy Andy

    At a time when priests patrolled the narrow country lanes at night, searching with sticks and even with dogs, for courting couples, Dan Paddy Andy came in for ringing denunciations from the Church. Archdeacon Browne intoned from the pulpit: There is ...

  • The Teapots Are Out and Other Eccentric Tales from Ireland

    A fitting tribute to John B. Keane, for decades Ireland's favorite storyteller, this winning short story collection typifies the late author's folkloric imagination and storytelling arts. These are congenial tales, too, as this literary legend views ...

  • Sive

    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 old man called Sean Dóta. Thomasheen convinces Mike and Mena to organise the mar...

  • An Irish Christmas Feast by John B Keane

    This bountiful collection of more than fifty tales by one of Ireland’s liveliest and most popular writers offers holiday charm and Gaelic humor by the Christmas stockingful. Drawing on the rich folk culture of County Kerry, John B. Keane brings new...

  • Short Stories of John B. Keane

    Classic pieces from the much loved John B. which represent the distillation of the experience of a funny, witty, wise and passionate observer of the bright tapestry of Irish life. This is a collection to prize. All human life is here, and Keane tells...

  • Celebrated Letters of John B Keane Volume 2

    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: "Fora...

  • The Highest House On The Mountain

    The Highest House on the Mountain examines the tension between brothers, fathers and sons. When Mikey's son Patrick comes to visit with his new wife, he is quickly followed by his brother Connie, a scheming ne'er-do-well who sets out to destr...



  • Rain At The End Of The Summer

    An unplanned pregnancy brings disorder to the otherwise amicable O’Brien household and the various characters are torn apart by their beliefs in the best way to deal with the pregnancy.Keen but never unkind, the attention of Ireland’s best-lov...

  • Many Young Men of Twenty

    A musical play dealing 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' - 'Everyone is lonesome leaving home' - their annual homec...

  • Christmas Stories

    According to the irrepressible John B Keane, When Christmas came to our street it came with a loud laugh and an expansive humour that healed old wounds and lifted the hearts of young and old.In this collection of Christmas tales, he gives us stories ...

  • Hut 42

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

John B. Keane has published 43 books.

John B. Keane does not have a new book coming out soon. The latest book, Hut 42, was published in July 2023.

The first book by John B. Keane, The Man from Clare, was published in January 1962.

No. John B. Keane does not write books in series.
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