Clare’s epic 2024 season that saw them capture the Liam MacCarthy Cup for the first …
Read More »Born To Run
THE turf fire flickers in Willie Keane’s front room. Outside, the bracing March wind cuts through Kilkee as the evening light slowly gives away to the night sky.While embracing the warmth wafting around the sitting room, Willie is probably more at ease mixing it with the slings and arrows of Irish weather. His 56 NACA Irish senior titles and 16 Clare championships attest to that. At the height of his career, Willie was beaten just once, in a 10-year spell, while running in the national championships. Yet he recounts a time when running on the roads near his parents’ home in Lisdeen, was a source of embarrassment to himself. “When you’d meet a car, you’d go inside the ditch. You’d be ashamed to be seen on the road. There was a kind of a stigma,” he remembers. Football was Willie Keane’s first sporting love. His father, Willie, had played football with Blackweir and Willie Junior passed most of his …
Read More »