John Keane (hurler) - Post-playing Career

Post-playing Career

In retirement from playing Keane became heavily involved in training both club and county teams. He trained his own Mount Sion club to many county victories in the 1950s and 1960s including a record-equalling nine Waterford senior hurling titles in succession. In the eighteen years between 1948 and 1965 the Mount Sion club won fifteen county senior hurling titles and John was associated as player or coach with every success.

As the trainer of the Waterford county senior hurling team he enjoyed an unprecedented run of success when the county won three Munster titles, one All-Ireland, one National League and one Oireachtas title. Keane’s side won the Munster title in 1957 but Waterford later lost the All-Ireland final by just one point to Kilkenny. After losing the Munster final in 1958 Keane’s side bounced back in 1959 to win another Munster medal. That year the Decies faced Kilkenny in the All-Ireland final once again and, after a drawn game, Waterford overwhelmed Kilkenny in the replay to claim a second-ever All-Ireland title. In 1962 Keane guided Waterford to an Oireachtas title and the following year to National Hurling League and Munster honours. However Waterford fell to Kilkenny in an exciting All-Ireland final.

In his final years Keane, who smoked cigarettes through most of his life, suffered from ill health. A heart condition and circulation problems reduced the mobility of one of Ireland’s greatest-ever hurlers. He knew that his time on earth was limited so, shortly before his death, Keane embarked on a tour of the country to visit many of his former hurling opponents. It was an heroic journey that also proved to be his last. First he travelled to Kilkenny to visit his great friend and opponent Jim Langton. Then back to Waterford where he spent a restless night tossing and turning with the pain. On the following day he travelled to Kinsale where he called on Jack Barrett, an old hurling colleague from his Munster Railway Cup days. After visiting Jackie Power in Tralee Keane was travelling to Limerick when he died on the side of the road near Tarbert, Co. Kerry, on 1 October 1975. He was just fifty-eight years old.

The following day his remains were brought back to Waterford and Mount Sion where the thousands waited silently in the wind and the rain to say a last farewell to the man who had made them all feel so proud and on the following day he was buried in the cemetery overlooking the broad sands of Tramore.

Keane was posthumously honoured by being named on the GAA Hurling Team of the Century in 1984 and the GAA Hurling Team of the Millennium in 2000. He was picked for the centre-back position on both teams, marking him out as the greatest number six in the history of the game.

In 2009 the Waterford City Trust erected a blue heritage plaque on the house where John was born in Barrack street, Waterford and in 2010 a long overdue biography of John was published - THE UNCONQUERABLE KEANE: John Keane and the rise of Waterford hurling by David Smith.