Paddy Keenan

Paddy Keenan (b.1950) is an Irish player of the uilleann pipes.

Keenan was born in Trim, County Meath. His father and grandfather were both uilleann pipers, and his father, Johnny Keenan, spent many nights playing along with piper Johnny Doran. He began playing at the age of nine, and at the age of fourteen he played at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin. He then turned towards blues and rock and toured England and Europe when he was seventeen.

Returning to Dublin, Keenan played regularly with his brothers and father at folk clubs and various venues around Ireland. In 1975, he was part of a band called Seachtar, from the Irish word for 'seven people.' This band was the genesis for the The Bothy Band, of which Keenan was a mainstay from its inception to its demise in 1979.

Keenan's first (and eponymous) solo album appeared in 1975, and he also duetted with fiddler Paddy Glackin on the 1978 album Doublin. He subsequently recorded a second solo album for Gael-Linn Records, Poirt an Phiobaire, in 1983.

After rejecting the chance to join Moving Hearts in the early 1980s, Keenan's musical career went into abeyance. However, in the 1990s he relocated to the U.S., rediscovered his musical talents and issued Na Keen Affair in 1997. He subsequently struck up a musical relationship with the London-born, Kerry-based guitarist Tommy O'Sullivan. Together, the pair issued The Long Grazing Acre in 2001. Keenan and O'Sullivan continue to tour regularly and widely.