Feargal Keane, now a BBC correspondent and author, recalls how his uncle, "the kindest man" he ever knew, gave him his start in journalism with judicious advice.
I was in Pakistan when my cousin, Conor, called with the news that John B. was near death. I'd known he was very sick but hoped he would see a few more weeks at least.
Now on a crackly phone line from the other side of the world, Conor was telling me it would be a matter of days. If I was going to see him before he died I would need to move quickly. So I raced around trying to organise the quickest possible flight to Ireland. Islamabad, Karachi, Dubai, London.
I didn't make it. I was coming through arrivals in Heathrow yesterday morning when Conor called again. John B. had died peacefully surrounded by his family. The kindest man I've ever known was lost to us. These are fractured rememberings, composed in grief and weariness, and they cannot do justice to a man to whom I owe so much.
I last saw him in the summer, and he looked terribly tired. We talked for a short while and then we walked the length of William Street, my son, Daniel, hopping ahead of us. "Isn't he the lovely boy. Your father would be so proud of him," he said.
John B. had been a good brother to my father. He helped him through illness and always gave his love unconditionally.
He gave his love to all of us with a fierce and elemental passion; woe betide those who slighted his family or friends. Family meant everything to John B., and he followed closely the doings of the scattered Keane tribe. Never, ever did he dissemble or refuse when I came looking to him for help.
I came to journalism because of him. I'd spent the summer of 1979 working in the bar in Listowel, telling anyone who'd listen that I planned to be a reporter.
"You'd better do something about that so," said John B. But it was John B. who did the "something". The following night I was sitting in the car with him on the road to Ballybunnion and an appointment with Neily Buckley, proprietor of the Limerick Leader. John B.'s instructions were that I was to say little and sip my pint in a "moderate" fashion. The idea was not to show how much I knew - or didn't know - about journalism but to let Mr Buckley get an impression of my character.
John B. did most of the talking. Under the stern gaze of John B. I adopted a pose of serene piety. I don't remember much beyond that except that a few weeks later I started work on the Leader.
As a child I remember him as a tall, laughing figure who would dig deep into his pockets for ice-cream money in the summer, and fetch out pound notes at Christmas. I remember going to the bog with him outside Listowel to foot turf where he told us stories about the King of The World fighting Fionn MacCool on nearby Cnoc an Óir, or walking in the woods at Gurtenard or along the banks of his beloved Feale river. Later when I began to read literature he would quote Keats and Thomas Hardy (two of his favourites) and encourage me to read the classics.
Whenever I called the question would be the same: "Are you writing?" And if not, why not?
I knew that walking down the street with him anywhere in Ireland could be perilous, for he always stopped and gave people his time. This generosity inevitably made him a target for some of the greatest bores in the country. Yet I never saw him treat them rudely. Perhaps it was because he loved the quirks and foibles of human nature. I think it was also because he was too kind to crush the weak.
When I was starting out in journalism he gave me a piece of advice which I have held close to my heart ever since. "Don't mind the big fellows. They can look out for themselves. Listen out for the small man. He'll tell you the truth."
With those he regarded as hypocrites or bullies John B. was uncompromising. He was proud of his culture and Irish identity but loathed cultural absolutism and hectoring nationalism; he was a devout Catholic but never shied away from confronting the darker side of the church in Irish life.
I think of Wordsworth's lines: "Men are we and must grieve when that which was great has passed away." John B. was great in the way of men who open their hearts and speak what they mean. He reminded me of a line from Paddy Kavanagh's Tarry Flynn, where the mother is urging Tarry to stay on the farm. He could be, she tells him, "the independentest man in Ireland". That was my uncle, "the independentest man in Ireland".
Is this a secular saint I am describing? Of course not. John B. had flaws like any man. But there wasn't a mean or dishonourable bone in his body.
At the heart of his life lay a great love affair. His wife, Mary, was his inspiration and his compass. I know he felt that he would never have achieved his fame without her: I think he also knew that he would never have become the human being he was without her love. I think now of Mary and my cousins, Billy, Conor, John and Joanna, and of the great absence in their lives. Not just a man, more a force of nature.
Friends in Ireland have been calling with their condolences. All of them sound stunned. John B. was part of their hinterland, too. Not the same intimate presence he'd represented in my life, but a part of their cultural memory. I will miss him in so many ways, but along with grief I feel a fierce pride in him. That was a man, all right. That was a man.