Born: March 15th 1950
Died: December 2nd 2025
Des Kenny’s lifelong practice of reading books in pubs began in loneliness 55 years ago. He was 20, in Paris. It was 1970 and he was studying the short stories of Pádraic Ó Conaire and those of the great Russian writers at the Sorbonne for a post graduate degree after graduating in French and English from University College Galway.
Years later he remembered living alone in a chambre de bonne’ on the 7th floor building on the Boulevard St Germain up 88 steps to “a cell-like room.” It was his “first time away from a happy, warm and loving home atmosphere and I reacted badly to it.”
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Wandering the streets of Paris, he “became aware of the remarkable French ability to sit for more than an hour with just one minuscule cup of espresso coffee”. In the city’s cafes, “you were warm. There was an artificial sense of belonging to the `Life’ scurrying around you” which “cut into the edge of the loneliness and you could read undisturbed to your heart’s content.”
Thereafter he never left that room on Boulevard St Germain “without a book. I quickly got to know the cafes where the patron’s patience and forbearance allowed me to extend my presence to two or three hours and, in these cafes, I steadily read my way through the short stories of Guy de Maupassant and the 20 `Rougon Maquart’ novels of Émile Zola.”
Not long afterwards, on his return to Ireland, he translated this practice to the pubs of Galway where, as he wrote later: “there is nothing I love more than to find a well-lit quiet corner in a comfortable pub and, over a few pints, lose myself in the world of whatever good book I happen to be reading at that moment.”
It continued as family happened. Once upon a time, at a hotel in Connemara, the entire Des Kenny family were observed, “Des, Anne, Deirdre, Aisling, Eimear and Dessy,” seated “at different locations throughout the bar, all deeply immersed in books.” The observer concluded, “you could have been forgiven for assuming that the mother of all family rows had just occurred.”
But, “at 8pm sharp all hell broke loose. They emerged in unison from behind their books and launched into one massive orgy of discussion and comparison and debate and banter regarding the books just read.”
Of course, it is `a Kenny thing.’ In the introduction to his 2008 book `Kenny’s Choice – 101 Irish Books You Must Read’ Des Kenny wrote of his family: “We grew up in a household that was sustained by the twin pulses of books and love.”
His book did not include Joyce’s `Ulysses’. Some demurred at his exclusion of a novel voted best of the 20th century. He was not for turning, believing Joyce was so well known people would find their own way to `Ulysses.’
Des was the third child in the Kenny household, headed by father Des and mother Maureen, including siblings Tom, Gerry, Conor, Monica, and the late Jane. They always got on. As a Galway wag once commented: “them Kennys are so close that the wives can’t get into the photographs.”
[ Kennys Bookshop in Galway: a bestseller for 75 yearsOpens in new window ]
Returning from Paris back then he was soon learning about books and their authors at the side of one of Ireland’s greatest experts, his mother Maureen. Like her, he soon developed personal relationships with many of those writers, particularly those who were Irish. He knew their lives and that of their fans as well as engaged customers, matching each to each with remarkable insight.
This personal touch led to extraordinary success among aficionados of good literature throughout Ireland, the UK, Europe, and not least in the US, but particularly at Irish studies departments in the American universities.
Hardly surprisingly, he was also an exceptionally good book critic, writing as `Biblio’ for the Galway Advertiser, broadcasting on Galway Bay FM, or in his `Des Kenny Reviews’ on You Tube. More importantly, perhaps, he was a great supporter of emerging authors and without any of the hauteur that so often greets the struggling self-published in such circles.
For instance, he was among the first to champion highly successful Galway crime writer, the late Ken Bruen, who he first saw leaving copies of his book for free in the Galway Arms pub. He read the book and offered to stock it. Kenny’s was the first bookshop to do so with any of Ken Bruen’s books.
[ Irish crime writer Ken Bruen dies aged 74Opens in new window ]
As a once similarly struggling writer wrote on Des Kenny’s death: “There was such kindness in him, such heart, sitting just under that gentle gruff. His support for Irish writers was legion, shaped by an uncanny insight – so many owe him their start – he was the first person I ever shared a poem with, and he charitably dispelled any hesitation I might have had.”
Throughout his life, he was also involved with Galway charities. Remarkably (to many, in later times) he even ran marathons for charity. From childhood, he was a member and then supporter of Our Lady’s Boys’ Club for disadvantaged children, while adulthood saw him join Galway Lions Club. With UCG colleagues, and using cassettes, he prepared `The Galway Echo’ audio books for blind people, long before such became either common or profitable.
In one of those ironies only life can deliver, he used to visit St Mary’s nursing home in Galway to read poetry and short stories to residents. It was where he died last month.
Des Kenny was “the bookman of the business” as one acquaintance put it. “There all the time, like an alternative guiding light, a little Buddha, a household god, a romantic soul, gruff, gentle and witty. A great man in the pub, his knowledge of books was phenomenal, and how to sell them. He was a presiding spirit in the business and his absence over recent years was deeply felt.”
He had a stroke about two years ago, after which his health went into decline.
For him, selling books was, he once said, “not a profession. It’s a vocation.”
That was how he lived his life.
