From Edmonds home, he’s Honorary Consul of Ireland in Seattle

Published 1:30 am Sunday, March 17, 2019

In John and Maureen Keane’s Edmonds home are reminders of his homeland and her Irish heritage. A Celtic cross and a sculpture of Ireland’s ancient sport of hurling share space on the shelves with books about Ireland.

It’s not apparent that their place, in essence, serves as a consulate.

At 76, John Keane is honorary consul of Ireland in Seattle. There’s no official Irish consulate in our region. The nearest Consulate General of Ireland is in San Francisco, under the umbrella of the Embassy of Ireland in Washington, D.C.

Yet Keane, as honorary consul, supports Irish ties to people here in all kinds of ways.

“It’s my passion. I’m very involved, I do nothing but Irish stuff,” said the Edmonds man, who was born and raised in County Westmeath in central Ireland, the seventh son in a family of eight boys.

Maureen Keane — her mother came from Ireland — grew up in Detroit. The city has a historic district called Corktown, as many of its 19th century immigrants came from County Cork during Ireland’s potato famine. As a child, Maureen learned dancing at an Irish-American club. She became a teacher of Irish dance.

As honorary consul, serving without pay, John Keane promotes contacts between Washington state and Ireland. He helps with visits by Irish officials and business people, and with passports and Irish citizenship.

Separate from that role is Keane’s long involvement with the Irish Heritage Club of Seattle. A former president of the group, he is treasurer and chairman of its Irish Week activities. Over this St. Patrick’s Day weekend, the club’s Irish Festival is bringing music, dance, food and more to Seattle Center.

Irish Week events in Seattle included a St. Patrick’s Day parade Saturday and other festivities. On Monday, Keane was busy preparing for the Irish Week visit of Galway Mayor Niall McNelis. The club is affiliated with the Seattle-Galway Sister City Association.

The Keanes weren’t too busy to share their love of the Emerald Isle — actually, Ireland’s coat of arms and its presidential flag is a gold harp on a blue background, a symbol the couple have outside their front door. They also shared opinions of St. Patrick’s Day traditions they say are distinctly American.

On Facebook, Maureen Keane recently posted what she said was her annual rant “to banish all four-leaf clovers from St. Patrick’s Day.”

The American good luck symbol is neither Irish nor a shamrock, she wrote. St. Patrick was said to use the shamrock, with its three leaves, “to illustrate the Catholic concept of the Trinity to the Irish pagans he was trying to convert.”

And don’t get her started on Lucky Charms cereal, with those marshmallow moons and four-leaf clovers.

Maureen Keane does enjoy a taste of Guinness, but she and her husband have never had green beer. Corned beef and cabbage? Nope, but John Keane said that in Ireland folks are more apt to have boiled bacon and cabbage.

John Keane, who came to the United States in 1967 and worked for the Bell Telephone Co., still has four brothers in Ireland, plus one in England and another in Florida. Their eldest brother died two years ago. Keane and his wife have one son, Micheal, who is married and lives on the East Coast.

Keane remembers life on the family farm, where they raised pigs, cows, chickens, wheat and barley. “Things were tough. When I left Ireland, we didn’t have a telephone,” he said. Like so many millions of Irish people, he left to find work. Jobs are more plentiful there now, he said, as companies including Microsoft and Amazon have employment centers in Dublin.

When John Keane gets up in the morning, he reads The Irish Times newspaper online. He live-streams Gaelic football games from his homeland, and talks with his brothers via Skype.

In 2007, Keane authored a book, “Irish Seattle,” part of Arcadia Publishing’s Images of America series.

Is he homesick? “Yes and no,” Keane said. “I love what I have here, but I miss the family there.”

Some things aren’t so different.

“It’s the same weather as here,” he said.

Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460; jmuhlstein@heraldnet.com.

Irish Festival

The 2019 Irish Festival, a weekend-long event at Seattle Center, is scheduled for 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday on the main level of the Armory. Seattle Center is at 305 Harrison St., Seattle. The festival includes music, dance, workshops, children’s activities, food and beverages, and vendors selling Irish and Celtic products.

Learn about the Irish Heritage Club at: www.irishclub.org

Information about the Honorary Consul of Ireland in Seattle: www.irishconsulseattle.com/