Dave Hannigan presented his new book 'We Need to Talk About Roy. The Keanification of Modern Ireland' on The Pat Kenny Show.

Few figures in Irish sport have cast as long a shadow as Roy Keane.

To some, he’s the embodiment of elite standards and uncompromising honesty. to others, he represents something else - a kind of cultural hard edge that’s seeped far beyond football.

A new book argues that Keane’s influence didn’t just shape teams but helped to shape modern Ireland itself.

“What I was trying to capture with that word and that kind of quirky title was how he has been the national obsession, the national argument, if you like, for nearly four decades now,” Mr Hannigan told the Pat Kenny Show on Sunday. 

“We've been obsessed with Keane in one way or another since 1990.

“Since his days as a kind of a teenage footballer at Nottingham Forest, right up to his, you know, the current phase of his life, the grey-bearded influencer phase that he inhabits right now.”

How Roy Keane became Roy Keane

The author, who grew up playing football against Roy Keane while he was in the Rockmount team.

He said Keane and his team were the “benchmark” for the rest of the players at the time. 

“Everybody in the whole city looked up to that team”, he told Newstalk. 

“It was a team of, like, all-stars, if you want, and any one of them looked like they could make it.”

He explained that scouts looking for talent initially took issue with Keane’s physique and questioned his ability to perform at a high level. 

Dave Hannigan explained that the subsequent doubts gave Keane a “chip on a shoulder that informed the way he played the game”.

He also mentioned trainer Brian Clough, saying that without the coach, there would have been no Roy Keane as Clough took a chance on him. 

“He was enjoying himself a little too much at times, but it was a very, very smart play by Clough to ensure that he stayed happy and content and then performed better on the field”, he told Newstalk. 

“He grew up in a very depressed city, in a very depressed part of a very depressed city, economically disadvantaged.

“I think that drive, again, is a product of his childhood. Every game that Roy Keane played, it wasn't like he'd been there 10 years and he was a multimillionaire. He was still playing with that hunger and that drive.”

The book alludes to how Mr Keane may have preferred a different management career than the one he partook in. 

Despite this Mr Hannigan said that Mr Keane “turned everything in his career into an anecdote and even to a commercial possibility”.

We Need to Talk About Roy. The Keanification of Modern Ireland by Dave Hannigan is out now. 

Main Image: Roy Keane. Picture by: PA Images.