Background
Keenan was born into a working-class family in East Belfast in 1950.
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Brian Keenan
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Ulster University.
Career
He left Orangefield School early and began work as a heating engineer However, he continued an interest in literature by attending night classes and in 1970 gained a place at the University of Ulster in Coleraine. Other writers there at that time included Gerald Dawe and Brendan Hamill.
In the mid 1980s Keenan returned to the Magee College campus of the university for postgraduate study.
Afterwards he accepted a teaching position at the American University of Beirut, where he worked for about four months. On the morning of 11 April 1986 Keenan was kidnapped by Islamic Jihad.
After spending two months in isolation, he was moved to a cell shared with the British journalist John McCarthy. He was kept blindfolded throughout most of his ordeal, and was chained by his hand and feet when he was taken out of solitary.
The British and American governments at the time had a policy that they would not negotiate with terrorists and Keenan was considered by some to have been ignored.
Because he was travelling on both British and Irish passports, the Irish government made numerous diplomatic representations for his release, working closely with the Iranian government. He was released from captivity to Syrian military forces on 24 August 1990 and was driven to Damascus. There he was handed over by the Syrian Foreign Ministry to the care of Irish Ambassador, Declan Connolly.
He now lives in Dublin.
He returned to Beirut in 2007 for the first time since being released 17 years earlier, and described "falling in love" with the city. Unforgettable.
