Inside Roy Keane's love of Ireland including regular visits to Cork
Despite spending most of his adult life in the UK, Keane is still a homebird.
There is no doubting who Roy Keane will be cheering on when Ireland take on England at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday evening.
Proud Irishman Keane represented his country 67 times during his playing days and also served as assistant manager under Martin O'Neill.
Despite being remarkably private, Keane is not shy about his love of home county Cork and regularly visits home to see his siblings and mother.
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Growing up in Mayfield, Keane previously spoke about how he gets home at least once a month, telling Off The Ball in 2022: "I definitely get back every three weeks for a few days. There's always reasons to get back and I'm very lucky with the work I've got a bit of freedom and I can kind of duck and dive and get back to Ireland whenever I please which is quite regular."
And home is where the heart is as Keane revealed he flew home from the 2022 World Cup despite being on punditry duties.
Keane is still an avid GAA fan and was spotted at the 2024 All-Ireland Hurling final when his home county lost to Clare.
Keane received a huge ovation when he appeared on the big screen as President Michael D. Higgins met both teams.
Having already served under Martin O'Neill as assistant manager for Ireland, Keane has previously said it would be his 'dream' to manage his country.
“If I could manage any team in the world, it would be going back to the Republic of Ireland job," said Keane earlier this year.
"I enjoyed the international setup when I was working with Martin O’Neill. I liked the dynamics and the flow of international football, and it wasn’t 24hrs a day, but I was still working at a high level. The dream job would be working for the national team, but I think that ship has sailed.
“I did speak to the Irish FA earlier this year, but I spoke to loads of teams. You can speak to anyone, but it doesn’t mean that anything is going to happen because the deal needs to be done and that takes a while to be finalised. If you’re going to sit down with someone in a room, the clubs need to be serious in their approach, but a lot of the time, they aren’t and are just timewasters, just looking for headlines in the press.”
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