Keane's mother, May, was an assiduous collector of traditional songs and tunes, and passed on her passion to her children.
When, in later years, Dolores, Seán and Matt Keane started recording professionally, they were able to draw on a wealth of material from their paternal aunts.
In 1958, the sisters entertained guests at the wedding of local farmer John Corbett to Mary Murphy, who had recently returned to Ireland after spending five years living in New York.
In the 1950s and 1960s Rita and Sarah played as part of Keane's Céilí Band, who performed for audiences of up to 1,000 people at dances in the local town of Tuam.
[4] Both albums feature a mixture of sean-nós (traditional unaccompanied Irish language singing) and ballads sung in English, and have subsequently been re-released on CD, indicating a continued interest in, and demand for, the Keane sisters' recorded work.