The football icon swung by to see the artwork at a new smash burger spot in the city
11:11, 05 Mar 2026Updated 13:14, 05 Mar 2026
Roy Keane surprised artist Roy Valk (Image: Roy Valk/Fat Phill’s)
An artist painting a mural of one of Cork’s favourite sons got a huge surprise when the man himself popped by to check out the artwork.
Roy Keane came down to Cook Street in the city centre to check out a cool mural painted by Roy Valk, a Dutch artist commissioned to complete three portrait murals at a new restaurant opening soon.
A Fat Phill’s franchise will open there next week. You may have never heard of them, but the Dutch smash burger specialists have restaurants in Dublin and London, and numerous outlets in the Netherlands. And now they’ve taken over after the closure of Café Noir in Cork.
Roy painted an impressive mural of Roy Keane as a ‘little present’ for Cork city(Image: Roy Valk)
Artist Roy Valk will complete two more murals featuring famous faces at the new restaurant – a portrait of Fontaines DC frontman Grian Chatten and rap star Tyler, the Creator.
But already a firm favourite is the huge black-and-white portrait of Keano, with a bright yellow text bubble of the Man U legend cheekily asking “Keane on a burger?” The mural is Valk’s gift to the Leeside public, he said.
Keane came down to see the mural for himself and personally thanked Valk for capturing such an impressive likeness. Roy Valk told Cork Beo that he received a great reaction from passersby as he painted, and that he was delighted to meet the football star. Before the Keano art, there was only some old graffiti on the hoarding.
Fat Phills is opening in Cork(Image: Fat Phill’s via Instagram)
“Since there was a wooden wall next door with some illegal graffiti on it, I thought it would be nice to give the public a little present. Since my name is Roy, I thought it would be fun to paint Roy Keane because he was born here in Cork,” he said.
Sharing a lovely snap of when the two Roys met, Fat Phills Ireland took to Instagram, writing: “Good news travels fast. Our boy @karskione was down at our new Cork location today, painting the latest mural in his Irish icon series.
“You can imagine the surprise he got when he was tapped on the shoulder by none other than Keano himself. We’re captioning this one ‘when Roy met Roy’. Savage work as always.”
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