Fr Martin Keane Personal Profile
“It was a great life to live and as one says I would do it all over again.”
Fr Martin Keane set off for Kenya in 1971. He had always wanted to be a missionary. Since he was in national school in his home town of Cranny, Co Clare, he recalls being told stories of missions from priests home on their holidays.
He attended Rockwell College in Co. Tipperary where he now sits on the school board since he returned to Ireland in 2015. There he was introduced to Holy Ghost Fathers who ran the school.
Entering the order straight after school, he studied philosophy for three years in UCD. As part of his studies between 1965 and 1967 he did pastoral work in Trinidad and the West Indies of which he has fond memories.
In July 1970 he was ordained in Lissycasey, Co. Clare. “We were asked where we would like to be appointed to. So I said I would like to be appointed back to Trinidad if possible, I was told that Trinidad isn’t really considered mission territory.”
And so he was appointed to Mombasa, Kenya. He learned Swahili, “which is a beautiful language, it’s very musical. Oh I loved the music and the dancing and everything,” says Fr Martin. He was fully immersed in the language, “I picked it up fairly fast, then I was able to talk to people in their own language and able to say Masses in Swahili.”
From the very beginning of his work in Kenya, Fr Martin was involved in training young people. He was also director of vocations to the priesthood for the diocese. He says that after a year in Mombasa the bishop at the time called him and asked him to be his secretary. He was afraid he wouldn’t have the skills but it was mostly driving the bishop to confirmations, “it was great actually because I saw nearly all of the diocese”.
The bishop said to him one day ‘you’re young you could take on another job’. He said. “well I want you to be in charge of youth”.
“I had great days with all kinds of different youth groups; holding workshops and retreats and trainings with young people. They were very responsive.”
An African bishop took over the diocese after the Irish bishop retired. Martin says that he asked him for a parish, “and he said start one”. The bishop named a place and Fr Martin started from scratch in Changamwe.
Many of the young people he worked with were unemployed. This spurred him on to develop projects such as a multi-purpose training centre in this parish.
He spent around five years there before he was transferred to the Holy Ghost Cathedral in Mombasa. “The year I started in the cathedral we were celebrating 100 years of the Catholic faith in Kenya and so I was given the job of organising it and it was marvellous,” says Fr Martin.
He came back to Ireland for a holiday one summer. “I think it was 1989 and I went up to see Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich in Armagh.” He invited him to attend the centenary, “he gave me a very interesting answer, he said ‘I would love to come but a lot may happen between now and then’.” The cardinal then passed away on a trip to Lourdes.
After this he was transferred to another diocese in Nairobi. “I was very lonely leaving Mombasa, I loved Mombasa I was there for 20 years and I had known so many people.
“I went to Nairobi and I was in the university chaplaincy and they were wonderful.” He celebrated Mass with the students as well as the staff there, once again working with young people.
From here he went on to become the Regional Superior of the Holy Ghost Fathers in Kenya and was then elected as Provincial Superior of the Irish Province from 1994 to 2000.
Returning to Kenya, he began to help out in setting up small Christian communities in Nairobi, where lay people formed groups in their local area. “In many ways we were way ahead of Ireland, with the lay people in leadership and it came naturally to them,” says Fr Martin.
“Then I said, ‘my heart is still in Mombasa so I want to go back to Mombasa’.”
Over his years in Kenya he developed projects for young people such as the multi-purpose training centre in his first Parish Changamwe and a Vocational School in the parish of Mikindani. This meant young people had access to training in different skills such as carpentry, metal work, motor mechanics, dressmaking and tailoring to name a few.
He wanted to give young people practical, employable skills and it’s still running after almost 20 years.
In 2007 Fr Martin was appointed to work on a new parish called Migombani. With help from sponsors in Clare under the ‘Building of Hope’ project, Fr Martin Keane was able to establish a Polytechnic Vocational School in the parish in 2010. Fr Martin Keane’s says: “I believe there are around 800 students now.”
He had returned to Ireland five years after the school was built and at end of last year he went out to revisit the area for a few weeks, “that was lovely. It was a very emotional time for me, to go back and meet some of the people that I had known and worked with”.
He says that the inspiring young people were one of the highlights of his work, they kept him motivated: “I suppose really they were the people of tomorrow, it was the growth of the people who would be Church leaders and leaders in society as well.”
“The one thing that encouraged me very much was the response from them and there was such quality in their leadership, that encouraged me to keep going.”