“His musicianship was outstanding,” he says. “He was a multi-instrumentalist and just had such an amazing feel for music. He was full of ideas and enthusiasm and never lost his love for what music could do.”
Keating, who died of cancer last Wednesday, was a revered figure for a generation of Irish music-makers. He played with Bell X1, HousePlants, David Kitt, Jape and the Redneck Manifesto among others. He was also an artist in residence at the National Concert Hall and made his own music under the moniker of BoNS Synth Ensemble.
Music was one of the things that kept him strong after he was diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer in 2020.
“Only last week, Glenn was on to me about songs that he was hearing and loving, and wanted me to hear them too,” Egan says. “He had a passion for music that never wavered.”
For Paul Noonan, the Bell X1 frontman, Keating was a dream collaborator, one whose enthusiasm for music was infectious.
“He had an amazing ability to read the room when he was playing,” Noonan says. “And when we’d bring him in for the live band, to help us realise what we’d done in the studio, he would always make his contribution very much his own, and not just parrot the parts that were already recorded.”
We brought him in and he added so much to the record. He very much rescued it
Noonan and Keating first worked together when Bell X1 were making their 2016 album, Arms.
“We were having real trouble with it, we were lost. We had seen him play with Jape and I thought he was really special. So we brought him in and he added so much to the record. He very much rescued it.”
Noonan’s side project, HousePlants, began during the pandemic and Keating was heavily involved from the start.
“It began during lockdown and it coincided with Glenn’s diagnosis. He loved playing music — that exchange of ideas, the collaboration. It was telling that in the past six years, he was always there. We only had to find a replacement for him once.
“We were conscious that in a live band there’s a lot of physical demands — dragging gear around — and we were conscious that that aspect might have been too much for him. But on the actual music front, he was so insistent that it nourished him in ways that were very valuable.”
Richie Egan and Glenn Keating perform as Jape at the 2015 Electric Picnic. Photo: Debbie Hickey
In April, 2025, to coincide with Daffodil Day, Bell X1 released a special video for their track Spacewalk, inspired by Keating. Noonan recalls that Keating would play on live versions of the track.
“It was very surreal to play it with him,” he says. “He knew it had been written about him, and he was in the middle of his cancer journey at the time. That song was our attempt to speak for our love of Glenn.”
Receiving his diagnosis came as a huge shock. Having suffered abdominal pain and bouts of severe tiredness, Keating’s GP arranged for him to have a colonoscopy. It was supposed to happen within two weeks, but as Covid had just hit, there was no sign of the appointment. Calls and emails went unanswered.
Months went by and the pain got so bad that he ended up in hospital. It was then that he learned the truth. In the years after his diagnosis, Keating advocated for early screening. He wrote a moving account for the Irish Cancer Society.
“Hearing the words ‘It’s cancer’ was a massive shock. I was only 40 at the time. Cancer was not on my mind, let alone bowel cancer. As Covid was still around, I had no family with me hearing the news. I had to call my wife to tell her about the diagnosis, which was incredibly distressing.”
He wrote about enduring the rounds of chemotherapy, the surgeries, and how, after a period of being cancer-free, he discovered it had spread to his lungs.
Despite a bleak prognosis, friends say he stayed positive. He threw himself into family life and music and raised funds for the Irish Cancer Society. He also raised €14,000 and awareness by doing a coast-to-coast cycle, Dublin to Galway, with his brothers, Cormac and Tony.
To the end of his life, he urged people to seek early diagnosis and to push for answers.
“You know the phrase ‘The squeaky wheel gets the oil’? I have discovered this is definitely true,” he wrote. “It’s hard to advocate for yourself, but when it comes to ill-health and cancer, you have to learn how to do it.
“Don’t be afraid to ask the questions, ask what something means or push for answers. If you catch things early enough, it can make a massive difference. Don’t be afraid to be a squeaky wheel.”
Keating is survived by his wife, Leda, and his sons, Arlo and Llewyn.