Nothing is Written in Stone

‘After I retired from legal practice, Justin and I were able to spend time in a family house in the Languedoc in France, and while we were there he would devote time to writing in his notebook… Once he began to write, the words seemed to flow for him. He left eight notebooks. The earliest is dated July 2006, the final one October 2009.’ (Barbara Hussey)

Justin Keating, son of the artist Sean Keating, attended UCD and TCD. He was a Labour Party politician (Minister for Industry 1973-77), academic, journalist, veterinary surgeon, television pioneer (as Head of Agricultural Broadcasting at RTE) and award-winning documentary filmmaker. In later life he served as Member of the European Parliament and became president of the Humanist Association. President Michael D. Higgins called him ‘a man who saw socialism as both essential and adaptable to change’. Keating introduced the first substantial legislation for the development of Ireland's oil and gas, set up the National Film Studios of Ireland at Ardmore and gave impetus to Kilkenny Design. He wrote extensively – and with opinions well ahead of his time – on the natural world, including women’s health, animal welfare, sustainable energy and ecology. ‘A well made, fit thoroughbred really striding out seems to me one of the most beautiful things on earth, on a par with an orchid or porpoise.’

Edited posthumously by his wife, Barbara Hussey, Justin Keating’s notebooks offer an in-depth, often-impassioned account of the interests, musings and opinions of one of Ireland’s most wide-ranging intellectuals. His dealings with J.D Bernal, Noël Browne, Sean McBride, Charles Haughey, Gerry Fitt and Conor Cruise-O’Brien, form part of this absorbing chronicle, aside from myriad friendships with writers and artists. Nothing Is Written in Stone is a brilliant self-portrait of this multi-dimensional man, who did so much to shape twenty-first century Ireland.