Dubliner whose daughter was murdered by white supremacists dies in Johannesburg

John Keane, who left Ireland for Africa as teenager, was 92

The death has occurred in Johannesburg of Mr John Keane, father of the African National Congress candidate, Susan Keane, who was killed in a bomb blast in 1994.

Mr Keane, who was 92, was originally from Westminster Road in Foxrock but left Ireland when he was 18 to hunt crocodiles on the Great Limpopo River in Mozambique. He was to make the continent his home for life.

Settling in apartheid era South Africa, he went into business but also became a member of the Communist Party (SACP) there.

His daughter, a town planner, worked underground for the then banned ANC party and was later chosen as a candidate for the party in the country’s first democratic elections.

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However, three days before the April 27th polling day, she was killed in a targeted bomb planted in downtown Johannesburg by members of the white supremacist party, the AWB. She was thirty six.

Speaking later to Mr Keane and his wife, Joan, the country's first black president, Nelson Mandela, said they had paid the ultimate sacrifice for the freedom of South Africa; the loss of their only child.

Mr Keane is survived by his wife, sister, brother in law and many friends.