Keane also explores – though he could do so in more depth – the disturbing power dynamics of a job that meant “the suffering of others was my daily bread”, and which affords foreign journalists privilege over their subjects through the passports and wealth that allow them to leave and get help. After reporting on the genocide in Rwanda, he “was shadowed by the memory of those who had witnessed the murder of their families, endured rape and mutilation, and unlike me had no access to medication or therapy”. Quite a few people have said to me: “You’re really hard on yourself.” It’s a self-protective mechanism – if I’m really tough with myself, then nobody else can be as tough on me. It’s been a habit all my life and goes hand in hand with shame, beating myself up; but it isn’t healthy, and that’s something I learned from writing the book, and the reaction to it. His words are a personal description of the physical and psychological wounds that come with Belfast’s reporting beat.

The Madness: A Memoir of War, Fear and PTSD The Madness: A Memoir of War, Fear and PTSD

Woman's Hour — Weekend Woman’s Hour: Caitlin Moran, Trichotillomania, Prison Officers, TikTok Nans, Olivia Dean Keane tells many stories about the hot spots he’s reported from. He also considers the nature of evil and provides cynical but illuminating commentary on the entire journalistic enterprise. As might be expected, a significant part of the book is dedicated to describing how he attempted to run from, then wrestle with, his demons, including his hospitalizations, his interactions with his Alcoholics Anonymous advisor and his psychotherapist, a specialist in the treatment of PTSD. It’s the most money I’ve ever spent on a book and was not shortchanged. Very well written and compelling. A brutally honest exploration of what motivates Keane to keep reporting on atrocities despite the toll on his mental health… Gentle but unflinching” - Guardian, Book of the Day Whether it is 19th century theatre or verse, or today’s pop culture, Irish migrants and their descendants have deeply influenced and steered the UK’s literature and arts. Think of Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw or, more recently, the Beatles, the Sex Pistols, Oasis, or Terry Wogan, Paul Merton, Claire Foy, the Irish and their descendants have had a profound influence on Britishness. The Irish have also been highly influential in the world of business, politics and sport.

How to Manage Your Worries

Please read the review of this book by fellow reviewer Canadian Reader. It is sensational and moved me. My review falls short mostly, I think, because I approached the book from a totally different mindset: One where I am forever in search of, but perhaps will never understand, and thus ever in awe of the motivation that leads journalists, war correspondents, news photographers and reporters to do what they do – and they should rightly find recognition for their craft. He looks haunted. His eyes fill with tears and he has difficulty talking for a moment. “You feel like a bit of a freak,” he says quietly. Fergal had a nervous breakdown– a period of acute mental illness leaving him unable to cope with life. After the terrible things Fergal had witnessed, you might expect him to call it a day– a phrase meaning to decide to stop what you are doing. But Fergal’s addictions made that impossible. Why would anyone want to be a war correspondent? And yet without them, how do we learn the truth of what’s going on in the world?

The Madness by Fergal Keane review - The Guardian

In the end though The Madness isn’t about self-discovery, but about rediscovering the world beyond the prison of addiction. Beauty, where it’s found, is fleeting; flowers on the frontlines, friendship among the mass graves and Keane makes a promise to the reader: he’s going to hold on to those moments. He’s going to keep hold of what is good. and I began to have nightmares of Rwanda. And of course, at that stage, you know, it was obvious that I was traumatised but, again, did I go to a psychiatrist? No, I didn't. I kept doing the job. He seems most upset when trying to explain his symptoms and what triggers them. “You know what? I think at some level I feel ashamed of it,” he says. “I’m still dealing with that. It’s so weird to lose control emotionally. It feels shameful. I can’t give you a rational explanation for it.” Keane forced himself to be there. That is what news is about. Being in those places of the biggest headlines. Places of great danger. Being with the fighting and the dead. It is a type of addiction. The telling of the story of Britain and Ireland has been dominated by narratives of conquest and rebellion in which a powerful empire attempts to subdue an indomitable native spirit – two different identities colliding throughout history. Fergal presents a more complex narrative. He begins with the old kingdoms of the Irish Sea, and travels through the time of the Vikings to the 19th and 20th century migrations, all the way to present day. Throughout the Irish have shaped literature, culture, politics and the physical landscape.But the battles in his head, inside what I call the mind’s wardrobe where things don’t get thrown out, began long before then.

BBC Radio 4 - All in the Mind, Fergal Keane and PTSD BBC Radio 4 - All in the Mind, Fergal Keane and PTSD

So did other struggles. Fergal’s father was a talented actor, a self-taught man of letters and a lifelong alcoholic. Searching for his drunken father in pubs and alleyways, the young Keane developed a bone-deep sense that something was wrong with the world and that it was his responsibility to put it right. Growing up in an alcoholic’s home made Keane anxious, hyper-alert and keen to escape. That escape arrived in the early 1980s, when his budding journalistic career took him from Ireland to South Africa. The Madness is a powerful account of the brutality of conflict and the horrors of war - both across the world and inside the self. In sharp prose, Keane writes compellingly about where his thirst for truth comes from, and takes him to the frontline of the some of the most infamous violence of our times. Unsettled ghosts rise from the bogs of Kerry; unmarked graves in Northern Ireland; Rwandan soil; a cellar in Palestine - what's clear is man's inhumanity to man is relentless and haunts the writer, driving him to understand our most base motivations, to rationalise terror, to witness and report conflict at close range and ultimately, to do no harm. The Madness is an extraordinary, captivating account of one man's journey in search of truth, as he excavates the human story from chaos.' Elaine Feeney Keane is interested in the question of intergenerational trauma, an emerging scientific field based in epigenetics—the study of the ways in which environmental factors, including traumatic experiences, can turn genes on and off. There is some evidence that genes altered by trauma can be passed on to offspring. Keane was advised by an expert that given the newness of this field, it might be more fruitful for him to focus instead on cultural factors that can create greater vulnerability to psychological trauma. Hence, the early chapters of his book explore some of the turbulent history of Ireland, particularly of County Kerry where his people are from. He speculates that the Famine of the 1800s (which his grandmother’s elders survived and talked about), the Easter Rising, Civil War, and the protracted sectarian violence of the twentieth century have all contributed to the shaping of his character. Born in 1961, Keane grew up with “a consuming curiosity about the world,” a love of history, an “instinctive loathing of bullies,” and “an irresistible compulsion to be where the night was darkest.” It’s clear he was an emotionally wounded person with a compensatory need to demonstrate bravery and fearlessness. Given all these factors, his career choice—reporting from dangerous conflict zones—should perhaps not surprise. The reason I’ve not given this book a star rating is because it deserves to be read regardless of how many stars it has been “awarded”. It is brutal and forthright in its honesty, and incredibly raw. When you read something like this, truly, only the stars in the sky are the ones that matter. In this series Fergal Keane explores the profound influence the Irish have had on Britain over many centuries, from the vanished tribes of the ancient Celtic world to the Ryanair generation of today.You know, the truth is, I was an alcoholic long before I got to Rwanda. But I was in the kind of functioning alcoholic - what they call, you know, managing it stage of the of the disease. If you’re a drug addict or an alcoholic killing yourself people will say, ‘Oh, my God, stop.’ War is the only addiction that people will come up to you and say, ‘That was brilliant’ — Fergal Keane Fergal Keane opens doors into closed places. He lets us look inside those complex compartments where fear, anxiety, anger and panic lurk, and he tells a story of being afraid all of his life… beautifully written… This is an important book” - Irish Times Fergal Keane's unflinching account of the effects of trauma on his own life is the source of his book's profound capacity to move its reader. With radical honesty and openness, and a vulnerability that I suspect required no small amount of courage, he more than fulfils the aim he sets out for himself in the prologue: to let others who bear similar burdens know they are not alone.' Kevin Powers, bestselling and prize-winning author of The Yellow Birds