Fergal Keane | |
|---|---|
 Keane in May 2016 | |
| Born | (1961-01-06)6 January 1961 (age 64) London, England |
| Education | Presentation Brothers College, Cork St Mary's College, Dublin Terenure College |
| Occupation(s) | Journalist and author |
| Title | On Air Editor atBBC News(?–2020) |
| Relatives | John B. Keane (uncle) |
Fergal Patrick KeaneOBE (born 6 January 1961) is an Irish foreign correspondent withBBC News, and an author.[1] For some time, Keane was theBBC's correspondent in South Africa. He is a nephew of the Irish playwright, novelist and essayistJohn B. Keane.
Born in London, England, Keane grew up inDublin and later inCork. His father was theListowel-born actor,Éamonn Keane.[2] His mother is Maura Hassett, a teacher and actress. He attended three primary schools in Dublin: Scoil Bhride, agaelscoil (Irish-language school),St. Mary's College andTerenure College, and, later, one primary school in Cork, St. Joseph's.[3]
In a 1999 interview withThe 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."[3]
His secondary education was atPresentation Brothers College in Cork, where Keane says he was encouraged to join the school debating society, and where he won the Provincial Gold Medal forPublic Speaking (on the subject ofpolice brutality in Ireland).[3] Today, Keane continues to draw on this experience acting as a public speaker, event chair and after dinner speaker.[4]
On finishing school in 1979, Keane started his career as a journalist with theLimerick Leader.[1] Subsequently, he worked forThe Irish Press. Later, he moved into broadcast journalism withRaidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ).[citation needed]
Keane joined theBBC in 1989 asNorthern Ireland Correspondent, but in August 1990 he was appointed their Southern African Correspondent, having covered the region during the early 1980s. From 1990 to 1994 Keane's reports covered the township unrest in South Africa, the first multi-racial elections following the end ofapartheid, and thegenocide in Rwanda. In 1994 he was appointed Asia Correspondent based in Hong Kong and two years later, after the handover, he returned to be based in the BBC's World Affairs Unit in London.
Keane was named as overall winner of theAmnesty International Press Awards in 1993[5] and won an Amnesty television prize in 1994 for his investigation of the Rwandan genocide, Journey into Darkness. He is the only journalist to have won both theRoyal Television Society Journalist of the Year award and theSony Radio Reporter of the Year in the same year – 1994.[6] He won The Voice of The Viewer award and a Listener Award for his 1996BBC Radio 4From Our Own Correspondent despatchLetter to Daniel,[7] addressed to his newborn son, and a One World Television Award in 1999. He won aBAFTA award for his documentary on Rwanda,Valentina's Story. He has won the James Cameron Prize for war reporting, theEdward R. Murrow Award for foreign reporting, theIndex on Censorship prize for journalistic integrity, and the 1995Orwell Prize for his bookSeason of Blood.[8][9] In May 2009 he won a Sony Gold Award for his Radio 4 seriesTaking A Stand. He also won a Peabody Award and anEmmy Award for his reporting as part of the BBC team covering the 2015 refugee crisis.[10][11]
In the three-part documentaryForgotten Britain, serialised on the BBC in May 2000, Keane travelled across the country meeting people living on the edge in affluent societies.[12] Keane was a patron of the UK-based development agency Msaada, which assisted survivors of theRwandan genocide.[citation needed] In 2009, he stepped down as a patron of charities he supported when the BBC revised its guidelines for all presenters, citing a desire to protect impartiality.[citation needed]
In 2010, he published his first history work,Road of Bones: the Siege of Kohima 1944, an account ofthe epic battle that halted the Japanese invasion ofIndia in 1944.
One of his projects is the five-part seriesThe Story of Ireland, a 2011 documentary co-produced byBBC Northern Ireland and Raidió Teilifís Éireann.
Keane has been awarded honorary degrees in literature from theUniversity of Strathclyde,Bournemouth University andStaffordshire University. On 15 December 2011, he received an honoraryDoctor of Letters from theUniversity of Liverpool. Keane was appointed anOBE for services to journalism in the1997 New Year's Honours list.
In April 2018, he was awarded theChristopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize forWounds.[13]
In November 2018, Keane provided the commentary for theWestminster Abbey service marking the centenary of theArmistice.[14]
The BBC revealed in January 2020 that Keane had suffered frompost-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for several years, and consequently moved out of his role as Africa editor in order to aid his recovery.[15] In May 2022, he presented a documentaryFergal Keane: Living with PTSD on BBC Two, in which he discussed the impact of PTSD and considered the most recent medical thinking on the condition and its treatment, explaining that his disorder had led him to consider withdrawing from conflict reporting.[16]
In 2022, Keane and the French Oscar winning directorAlice Doyard collaborated to make theUkraine war crimes documentaryI call him by his name which won Feature Story of the Year from the Foreign Press Association.[17] In July 2023, he revisited the people and locations from the seriesForgotten Britain for a second time in the BBC One programmeBrave Britain with Fergal Keane.[18][19] This new documentary was a one-off programme by Alice Doyard and featured new footage of Keane inCornwall,Glasgow and on theLincoln Green estate inLeeds, with archive footage taken from programmes made in 2000 and 2012. In 2024, Keane was elected as an honorary fellow of theBritish Academy.[20]
