The Chastitute by John B. Keane

John Bosco is a fifty three year old bachelor living in rural Leitrim. He has been consigned to a life of celibacy by a combination of religiously inspired sexual guilt, social ineptitude and plain bad luck. His fate is not, as he explains himself, the result of a lack of effort on his part. A combination of flashbacks, imaginings, and actual happenings illustrate his endeavors with the opposite sex. His run of failure continues throughout the play in spite of the ministrations of a matchmaker, his aunt Jane, a smooth-talking lothario, and even the local priest, all of whom are filled with parochial advice on the subject.

John B. Keane

John B Keane was born in Listowel, Co Kerry in 1928. He published forty-six works, but is best known for his plays which inlcude Sive; Sharon’s Grave; The Man from Clare; The Year of the Hiker; The Field (which was adapted as a film of the same name); Many Young Men of Twenty; Big Maggie; Moll; The Crazy Wall; The Buds of Ballybunion; The Chastitute; and Faoiseamh.

His novels are The Bodhran Makers; Durango; The Contractors; A High Meadow. He has published many books of humourous essays and letters, including Letters of a T.D.; Love Bites, and Owl Sandwiches. He has published one book in Irish, Dan Pheadí Aíndí. His biography is Man of the Triple Name. He is a former president of Irish P.E.N., an Honorary Life Member of the Royal Dublin Society, a D.Litt (hon.causa) Trinity College Dublin; Hon. Doc. Fine Arts, Marymount Manhattan College. A founder member of the Society of Irish Playwrights, he was a member of Aosdána. He lived in Listowel, Co Kerry, and died in May 2002.