Charlie Keegan
author of "The year of the Cats"

Charlie Keegan, author of ‘The year of the Cats’ has worked as a journalist since 1966 when he joined his local newspaper, The Nationalist & Leinster Times in Carlow Town, direct from school.

He worked for a total of 35 years with The Nationalist, covering news and sport, becoming a familiar figure throughout counties Carlow, Kilkenny, Laois and Kildare due to his involvement in covering the GAA scenes in those counties.

On the establishment of the Kilkenny Voice newspaper in September 2006, Charlie was invited to cover sports for the new publication and is Gaelic Games correspondent for that newspaper.

For the past four decades Charlie has also been Carlow GAA correspondent for a number of daily newspapers including the Independent Newspaper Group, The Irish Times and The Irish Examiner.

Charlie played hurling and football for a number of years, winning a Carlow SHC with his club, Palatine, in 1972, having won an Intermediate hurling championship in 1970. He also represented his native Carlow at all inter-county football levels – minor, Under 21, junior and senior, while also lining out at minor and junior grades for the Barrowsiders.

He is a life-long supporter of Kilkenny hurling. His late father, Paddy Keegan, a native of Goresbridge, was a noted handballer, winning championships in both Kilkenny and Carlow. Charlie was inbued with his love of Noreside hurling by his father, to whom he has dedicated the book.

The first All-Ireland hurling final Charlie attended was the replay of 1959 when Waterford beat Kilkenny 3-12 to 1-10 on the day Eddie Keher made his bow as a senior inter-county player, coming on as a substitute. Since then he has attended every All-Ireland final involving Kilkenny, except that of 1979.

He has worked on the production of a number of GAA publications down the years, including ‘Field of Dreams’ a book dedicated to the Graignamanagh GAA Club.

‘The year of the Cats’ is his first book. Charlie was in a pivotal position to write this chronicle of Kilkenny’s hurling successes of 2008 and also the three-in-a-row of the seniors, having covered every game in the march to hurling immortality of Brian Cody’s men.

Charlie is married to Margaret and they have four children – Louise, Susan, Nicola and Cathal. The Keegans have four grandchildren – Ciaran, Aoibhinn, Donagh and Sorcha.