Journalist · Broadcaster · Novelist
Thirty years reporting the world's stories for television and print — now writing Sligo's own, from a life rebuilt on the Atlantic edge at Rosses Point.
Rosses Point, Co. Sligo, Ireland · United Arts Club, Dublin
About
Kieran Devaney has spent a lifetime telling other people's stories — and, eventually, a few of his own. Over a thirty-year career in television and print journalism he reported and produced programmes for TV-am, Channel 4, ITN and Sky News in the United Kingdom, CNN in the United States, and TV3 in Ireland, where he produced The Vincent Browne Programme until his retirement from daily broadcasting.
His writing has appeared in The London Times and in publications around the world, while his documentary work — more than 100 films made across three decades — earned him a Sony Award and two Gold Medals at the New York International Festival of Radio and Television. His reporting took him into the field as well as the studio: he covered Burma's 1990 election and Aung San Suu Kyi's struggle for democracy from inside the country, alongside Karen freedom fighters.
In 2009 he left Dublin for Rosses Point, County Sligo, to write full time. He now publishes novels rooted in the landscape, folklore and history around him, leads guided tours through Rosses Point's seafaring and literary heritage, and still writes and broadcasts on the stories that matter to him.
Broadcasting Career
Kieran's career took him through the newsrooms and edit suites of some of the best-known broadcasters in the English-speaking world.
He produced The Vincent Browne Programme for TV3 until his retirement from broadcasting, capping a career that carried him from breakfast television in London to prime-time current affairs in Dublin — and, throughout, a continuing byline in The London Times.
Documentary Spotlight
For two and a half years, Kieran recorded the life of his close friend Patsy Dan Rodgers, King of Tory Island — a title with an unbroken lineage back to the fifth century. Made with co-producer Tim Desmond, the documentary is an intimate portrait of a man defending a vanishing way of life on a remote Atlantic island while confronting his own mortality.
It stands among the more than 100 documentaries Kieran has made over his career — one built on gaining the trust of remarkable people and staying with their stories long enough to do them justice.
Listen on RTÉ ↗“A vibrant community of music, language and ceilidhs, and a king who confided in his old friend about the future he feared he would not see.”
The Last King of Ireland, RTÉ Documentary on One
In His Element
Published Novels
Since settling in Sligo, Kieran has turned his reporter's instinct for a good story toward fiction steeped in the folklore, history and coastline of the West of Ireland.
Beneath the seafaring village of Rosses Point, a hidden battle between the faerie world and its old enemy is fought by three immortal swans — the Drumcliffe pilots. Woven through it: W.B. Yeats' fascination with the occult and the enigmatic Eva Gore-Booth.
“A hefty volume worth its weight.” — J.P. Donleavy
Buy on Amazon ↗A wartime romance between an island girl and a young German U-boat crewman, set against an audacious plot to smuggle Hitler to South America — a novel of love and loyalty tested by war on Ireland's remote northern coast.
Buy on Amazon ↗Forthcoming: The Eldorado — a story of shipwreck and survival in the Canadian wilderness.
Press & Writing
Decades of bylines in The London Times and publications worldwide, alongside a continuing column of personal essays for IrishCentral.
IrishCentral
A ginger kitten found in 1980s Sligo becomes a tabloid sensation after a memorable Aer Lingus flight and a limousine welcome.
IrishCentral
A one-dollar straw fiddle bought in Rangoon while covering Burma's 1990 election leads Kieran home to a Sligo ceilidh.
IrishCentral
Humorous musings on Irish pub culture — colourful characters, Good Friday workarounds, and Irish solutions to Irish problems.
Beyond the Page
Kieran now leads guided tours through Rosses Point's seafaring and literary heritage — the harbour, the pilots' houses, and the shadow of Ben Bulben and Drumcliffe that shaped W.B. Yeats. It is the same landscape and history that runs through his own novels.
Get in Touch
Kieran is available for interviews, speaking engagements, guided tours of Rosses Point, and press enquiries about his books and documentary work.
Rosses Point, Co. Sligo, Ireland · United Arts Club, Dublin