Patrick Joseph Keane

Joseph Patrick “Pat” Keane, Professor of English at Le Moyne College for over twenty-five years, died on May 2, 2025, surrounded by the people he cherished and who cherished him in return. Gathered around Pat in his final days were lifelong friends, colleagues and admirers, former students, devoted neighbors, and beloved family members. Pat Keane lived his life with flair and—no matter his age—with a buoyant, youthful enthusiasm. While Pat was renowned for his scholarship, he was loved for his infectious sense of humor and his unwavering generosity. Pat never failed to help a friend—or even a stranger, always had time for a student, and never missed a chance to tell a good joke or an old story. Every day of his life, Pat Keane earned the love and devotion that sustained him at the end of it.

Pat was born on November 28, 1937 and grew up in a section of the Bronx known as Alden Park. While he lived most of his adult life in Syracuse, N.Y., in many ways, Pat never left “the old neighborhood.” Being a boy from the Bronx was a point of pride for Pat, as important as any of the degrees or awards he would earn later in life. Pat’s parents separated when he was just a child, and while Pat spoke affectionately of his father, Joseph Keane, he was devoted to his loving, spirited mother, Margaret Keane, who raised him in their small walk-up apartment. When Pat spoke of life in the Bronx, which he did often, his stories were filled with characters: gangsters and truck drivers, cocktail waitresses and truant officers, local cops and parish priests. In the banter, quarrels, jokes, and gossip of his neighbors, he heard a kind of poetry. Most of all, Pat adored the friends of his youth: the wild boys with whom he ran the streets, and the lovely girls he romanced and treasured. Pat loved the wit and swagger of the Bronx—qualities he carried with him when he moved away.

Pat’s hardscrabble adolescence culminated in time spent at a residential high school—some might call it a reform school—run by the Salesian Society of St. John Bosco. Whether or not he was “reformed” remains debatable; he was, however, motivated to learn. Pat’s academic skills blossomed, and he gained admission to Fordham University where he studied both History and English. After graduation, Pat served in the United States Army and thanks to the G.I. Bill, he enrolled in graduate school at New York University where he earned his PhD in English.

As a young scholar, Pat was invited to participate in two institutes sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities, each directed by the renowned literary critics Harold Bloom and Helen Vendler. They would go on to become not only Pat’s mentors but also his friends, just as Pat would inspire generations of students, many of whom remained close to Pat for years. His career began at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs. Pat loved the community he found there—the summer nights listening to Jazz, the racing season and the vitality of the track, and most of all the gifted artists and writers he befriended. For decades Pat returned to Saratoga and always felt at home there.

In 1978, Pat joined the faculty of Le Moyne College. It would be hard to describe or quantify the effect he had on his students and on the institution itself. Pat was a scholar of remarkable breadth and depth: writing books on William Butler Yeats, James Joyce, Robert Graves, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Emily Dickinson. He published articles in scholarly journals on the writings of William Blake, Friedrich Nietzsche, Oscar Wilde, Mark Twain, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Pat was named Scholar of the Year in 1989, and he was the first faculty member at Le Moyne to be awarded the Francis J. Fallon, S.J. Endowed Professorship in 1992. Even after he retired, Pat continued to write, contributing regularly to the online journal Numéro Cinq.

While Pat had a restless curiosity that led him to explore a wide variety of issues, disciplines, and philosophies, he was foremost a scholar of Irish literature and culture. Not only did he inspire the Irish Studies program at Le Moyne College, he was also a regular participant in the Yeats International Summer School in Sligo. Over the years, he regularly took students to Ireland where they explored the beauties of the countryside and toured the major cultural sites. Pat directed the Honors Program at Le Moyne and encouraged students from all backgrounds to enter it. Pat found the greatest personal satisfaction in the classroom, where he paid his students the compliment of challenging them intellectually and giving them the tools to meet that challenge. This former “bad boy” of the Bronx never forgot that talent and promise don’t always arrive from a fashionable address.

Yet, in as much as Pat Keane lived “the life of the mind,” he had a strong appetite for worldly pleasures and joys. He loved a dark, friendly tavern, a lively game of pool or darts, a frothy beverage and a bawdy joke. He gathered with friends regularly for long and late-night rounds of poker. Pat loved animals—cats and horses especially. He wrote odes to his cats Rintrah and Minnaloushe, and a lengthy essay about his admiration for the magnificent Secretariat. If he could have chosen an entirely different career, it might have been working at the Bronx Zoo or running his own animal shelter. On the table, next to his hospital bed, he had a volume of poetry, a collection of political essays, and a copy of the Racing News. It feels particularly poignant that he died the day before the Kentucky Derby, which was a kind of sacred holiday for Pat. But perhaps, instead, he felt that it was time to finish his own race.

Pat leaves behind a list of friends, colleagues, and former students—in New York City, Syracuse, Saratoga and points around the globe—too long to name here; all of whom, over the coming months and years, will toast him with a “parting glass.” Pat will be mourned by, among others, the members of the James Joyce Club, the Central New York Irish Cultural Society, and by the Le Moyne College Pub Committee.

He is survived by his devoted companion Sandra Clarke and her nephew Anthony Branca, and their dog Max—a special favorite of Pat’s. He also leaves behind his loving neighbors Alex Mendez Giner and Sandy Siquier, Rebeca and Veronica Mendez Siquier, who grew to be family, and who cared for Waldo and Seamus, the last of Pat’s feline friends, which gave Pat great peace of mind. Finally, Pat is survived by his wonderful family in the Bronx: his aunt Maureen Hanratty (through marriage to his uncle James), his goddaughter and cousin Keeley Hanratty-Sullivan (William E.), her daughters Kelly, Samantha, Rebecca, Teresa, and Caroline. Pat was predeceased by his parents Joseph P. Keane (1979) and Margaret Keane (née Fox) (1999), Edward Fox, his uncle James Hanratty (1984), and by his cousin Stephen Hanratty (2018).

There will be a private service in the Bronx and memorial at Le Moyne College at a future date. Donations can be made to the Food Bank of Central New York.