Fergal Keane once worked to the drumbeats of war. Now the BBC man has written of the price he paid. Miranda Jessop finds him turning the page...
My first phone call to broadcaster Fergal Keane goes straight through to his answerphone. In his unmistakable soft Irish lilt, the recorded message explains that he is currently in a remote area, so communication may be difficult.
It is pretty much par for the course
A war correspondent with the BBC for over 30 years, Fergal has reported on conflicts worldwide, including Somalia, Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan and Ukraine. But one place you will no longer find him is on the front line.
Diagnosed with acute post-traumatic stress disorder, he has been forced to leave those days behind; and when I do get to speak to him, it is ahead of an appearance at nowhere more terrifying than Twickenham. The Barnes resident will discuss his new book, The Madness: A Memoir of War, Fear and PTSD, as part of this month’s Creative Voices series at The Exchange.
Born to an actor father and a teacher mother, Fergal Keane spent most of his first 11 years in Dublin before moving to Cork. Looking back, he believes that it was always his intention to become a journalist.
“I loved words, I loved stories,” he recalls. “I grew up in Ireland with a very strong oral storytelling tradition and my parents were great readers of poetry, of history, of fiction, and so they passed this love of words on to me. I just always had this feeling of wanting to tell stories, from as far back as I can remember.”
When Fergal left school at 18, his uncle – the well-known Irish playwright and novelist John B. Keane – helped him land a job as a junior reporter on the Limerick Leader.
“It was the main newspaper in Limerick, and I started out by covering county shows, rugby, local courts, council meetings and all of that. I was there for three years, and that was my grounding and the making of me as a journalist.”
From there, it was on to The Irish Press, a now-defunct national newspaper in Dublin
“Bear in mind that when I came into journalism, it was 1979, and the Troubles in Northern Ireland were very much on the go, and that was part of the background noise of our lives. The IRA hunger strikes were taking place. So, as soon as I could, I went up and started working in the north.”
It was the beginning of Fergal’s long professional relationship with conflict, an involvement which deepened during his five years in Irish radio and television in Belfast.
“I was always fascinated by what makes people tick, what makes them behave in a certain way,” he says. “Particularly people in extreme and dangerous situations in war. Why do some of them behave incredibly bravely, and others behave so awfully brutally and callously?”
The BBC beckoned, and in 1990 Fergal became its Southern African Correspondent. A distinguished career as a war reporter followed. The Rwanda genocide, he says, was one of the most vivid and affecting periods in his life. But Kosovo, Ukraine, the invasion of Iraq, the ongoing conflict in the Middle East: all of them “left their mark”.
And a heavy one too. For although Fergal escaped all these dangerous situations with his life, he has paid a hefty price with his mental health. He was first diagnosed with PTSD symptoms as far back as 1999, though he refused to let them keep him from his job.
“I didn’t pay attention to what was going on inside,” he admits. “I kept going, and it was nearly a decade later when I had a serious breakdown – I just totally snapped. I was consumed and immobilised by anxiety and terror, constantly afraid and suffering from panic attacks.”
At this point, Fergal did take six months off. But still, he went back.
“I returned to work with predictable consequences. I was just too addicted to what I was doing – not the excitement, but the job that I had created for myself. It was so much part of me, it was just so very difficult to give it up.”
Inevitably, his mental health continued to deteriorate and, in 2019, his only option was to step away from the front line for good. A prolonged stay in hospital proved the first step on restoration’s road.
“Recovery was a long process and it still is,” he reflects. “I still have to struggle with myself not to put my hand up and volunteer for dangerous assignments.
“In retrospect, one of the most important things I did – apart from saying ‘no’ to the front line – was to learn to love life, to enjoy it, and to try to see things in a more positive way; to be grateful – extremely grateful – for the fact that I survived. To see the joy in walking beside the Thames with my dog. It’s things as simple as that which I’d failed to do for years.”
Fergal began writing about his experiences in 2021.
“I had been asked to make a documentary about PTSD for the BBC some years before, but I didn’t feel able. Then they asked me again and I agreed. I came up with so much in the research, I thought I would write a book too.”
Has it helped with his recovery?
“It wasn’t an intentional catharsis and I found it a very difficult book to write, but now that it’s done, I’m glad. It’s good to have gone back through the memories – not just what I’ve seen, but all that I’ve been. That was the most important thing, in many respects. I was a very different person back then.”
And why call it The Madness?
“That’s what I felt overcome by at times. It was indeed a kind of madness – to go back again and again to something which is damaging you so profoundly and which carries the risk of being killed. It wasn’t as if I was taking a measured, reasoned decision to go each time. My own drive compelled me.”
Now working as a special correspondent with the BBC, Fergal has just finished making a film about migration in Ireland.
“I go to Jerusalem a lot and report from there on what is happening in Gaza,” he says. “Reporting at a distance – using my brain, I suppose, rather than physical courage.”
When I ask if he misses being a frontline reporter, his reply is instantaneous and succinct.
“I don’t miss the fear, I really don’t.”
And he hopes that his book will help others with anxiety.
“We live in a deeply anxious age on so many levels, but if people see somebody like me being honest and open about my mental struggles, it might encourage them both to share with someone else and to realise there is always hope. Morning always comes.”
