Fergal Keane

Fergal Patrick Murphy Keane OBE (born 6 January 1961) is a foreign correspondent with BBC News, and an author. For some time, Keane was the BBC's correspondent in South Africa. He is the nephew of Irish playwright, novelist and essayist John B. Keane.

Born in London, Keane grew up in Dublin and later in Cork. His father was the Listowel-born actor, Éamonn Keane. He attended three primary schools in Dublin: Scoil Bhride, a gaelscoil (Irish-language school), St. Mary's College and Terenure College, and, later, one primary school in Cork, St. Joseph's.

In a 1999 interview with the Independent, Keane said that his gaelscoil education proved useful in later life: "The grounding in the Irish language I had at Scoil Bhride has never left me. In a foreign country when I'm on the phone and don't wish people to understand what I'm saying, I speak Irish and no Serb listening in is going to crack the code."

His secondary education was at Presentation Brothers College in Cork, where Keane says he was encouraged to join the school debating society, and where he won the Provincial Gold Medal for Public Speaking (on the subject of police brutality in Ireland). Today, Keane continues to draw on this experience acting as a public speaker, event chair and after dinner speaker.

On finishing school in 1979, Keane started his career as a journalist with the Limerick Leader. Subsequently, he worked for The Irish Press. Later, he moved into broadcast journalism with Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ).

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