[3] In a 1999 interview with The Independent, Keane said that his Gaelscoil education proved useful in later life: "The grounding in the Irish language I had at Scoil Bhride has never left me.

"[3] His secondary education was at Presentation Brothers College in Cork, where Keane says he was encouraged to join the school debating society, and where he won the Provincial Gold Medal for Public Speaking (on the subject of police brutality in Ireland).

From 1990 to 1994 Keane's reports covered the township unrest in South Africa, the first multi-racial elections following the end of apartheid, and the genocide in Rwanda.

[10][11] In the three-part documentary Forgotten Britain, serialised on the BBC in May 2000, Keane travelled across the country meeting people living on the edge in affluent societies.

[citation needed] In 2009, he stepped down as a patron of charities he supported when the BBC revised its guidelines for all presenters, citing a desire to protect impartiality.

[citation needed] In 2010, he published his first history work, Road of Bones: the Siege of Kohima 1944, an account of the epic battle that halted the Japanese invasion of India in 1944.

[14] The BBC revealed in January 2020 that Keane had suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for several years, and consequently moved out of his role as Africa editor in order to aid his recovery.

[16] In 2022, Keane and the French Oscar winning director Alice Doyard collaborated to make the Ukraine war crimes documentary I call him by his name which won Feature Story of the Year from the Foreign Press Association.