Writing & Literature
TONY KEENAN
2023
I write fiction short stories based on real life and real places. I write about the people who queued through the night to call far-off loved ones from the magic phone box which, for weeks, refused to take money. I write about loneliness, like the old man on the night he dies, sitting in his armchair, watching the world go by and I write of the ex-navvy who concealed a nine-hole golf course on his neighbours land and sought a friend to play with. Claire Keegan’s moving novellas, depicting painful social history in Ireland’s southeast, are an inspiration. I also like the wild short stories of Kevin Barry, his dialogue, his ear, the cadence of how Irish people speak.
Excerpt from ‘Invisible Golf Course’
While my prose is about people, my poetry is a lyrical response to the landscape itself. I will continue to write about my own strange experiences from Ireland’s midlands, where I grew up, and of the beauty of the north-west where I live.
