Keatinge, John (d. 1691), judge, was the younger of two sons of Edmund Keating of Narraghmore, Co. Kildare, and his wife Elinor Eustace. His elder brother was Oliver Keating (d. 1683). His maternal uncle was Sir Maurice Eustace (qv), lord chancellor of Ireland 1660–65. Raised as a protestant, Keating graduated (1655) BA from TCD. In 1657 he entered Lincoln's Inn. He does not seem to have been a diligent student, as later sources describe his legal training as ‘slender’ (Ball, Judges, ii, 289). This failing was attributed to his courtship of Grace, widow of Sir Robert Shuckburgh, and daughter of Sir Thomas Holt of Aston, Warwickshire, England. She and Keating married (1659) in London.
Keating first became involved in Irish politics when he became deputy clerk to the Irish parliament (1661). It is unclear whether he acted as clerk to the lords or commons, but it is more likely to be the former, his uncle being lord chancellor; more strikingly, surviving accounts of the administration reveal that he bought a clock for the peers’ chamber in 1662. He was also made clerk of the crown and peace in Ulster, an office he was allowed to retain after he was appointed to the bench. When the earl of Mountrath (qv), one of three lords justices governing in the absence of a viceroy, died in December 1661, Keating was dispatched to London with the urgent task of acquiring a new commission for the two remaining governors. He later received £200 to cover his expenses on a mission he had completed, remarkably, in twelve days. Later still, he received a further gratuity of £300 in recognition of his work as deputy clerk of parliament.
Keating was admitted to King's Inns in February 1662. He received his first notable legal employment when commissioned by the duke of Ormond, James Butler (qv), and the duke of Albemarle, George Monck (qv), in September 1662 to serve as legal counsel to the trustees dealing with the arrears due to the so-called ‘forty-nine officers’. This appointment represents his first definitive contact with Ormond, who in 1665 reminded the trustees that he had paid £500 to cover Keating's expenses while representing them at Whitehall. Over the following years Keating developed a close working and personal relationship with the various members of the Butler family. He acted as an intermediary for those seeking the duke's patronage. His connections with Ormond and the Butlers in these years (in 1685 he was even allowed to hunt in the deer park of the earl of Arran (qv)) were to set him well on the road of personal advancement throughout the 1660s and early 1670s. In 1675 Ormond appointed him attorney general of the court of the regalities and liberties of the county of Tipperary, an office in Ormond's personal gift. He became counsel in Ireland to James (qv), duke of York, in 1676. Increasingly in the 1670s he was consulted on the Irish revenues, and this continued after his appointment to the Irish privy council in 1679.
In May 1679, during the ‘popish plot’ crisis, he was appointed chief justice of the common pleas, largely thanks to the intervention of Ormond, now again viceroy. It was claimed by some that he was appointed so that he would be the judge to try Richard Power (qv), earl of Tyrone, who faced indictment for treason. Despite the fears and hysteria raised by the ‘plot’, Keating proved to be no persecutor of catholics. This did not endear him to everyone, however, and by the end of 1680 claims were circulating that he too was complicit in the ‘plot’. These accusations did not damage his career at this time, and in February 1681 he was offered the post of lord chief justice of the court of king's bench, which he refused. As the ‘plot’ lost credibility, Ormond in summer 1681 sent Keating and the other judges on circuit with specific instructions to enquire into the veracity of the ‘plot’. On the circuits of Connacht (autumn 1681) and Munster (spring 1682) Keating showed that he did not accept the allegations that had been brought against many of those accused of complicity in the ‘plot’, and many defendants were subsequently freed. His actions at this time prompted the Gaelic poet Dáibhí Ó Bruadair (qv) to compose a poem in his honour – ‘Searc na suadh’ (‘Love of sages’), in which he associated the judge with a previous bearer of his family name, Geoffrey Keating (qv) – and to write a letter to the chief justice in English (Duanaire Dáibidh Uí Bruadair, part 2, pp 264–88). In the late 1670s and early 1680s Keating was particularly busy. Between late 1681 and mid 1682, he was effectively the only active judge sitting in the court of common pleas when death and illness had removed the other judges. At the same time he was governor of the Erasmus Smith schools.
After the accession of James II Keating continued as chief justice of the common pleas and a member of the privy council. In the early years of James's reign he supported the efforts of Lord Clarendon (qv), the lord lieutenant, to resist the growing influence of the earl of Tyrconnell (qv) on policy. In an effort to head off attempts to have the restoration land settlement repealed, Keating suggested (May 1686) that a commission of grace be appointed to deal with contentious land issues, a policy that Clarendon adopted. Keating became one of Clarendon's most trusted advisers. However, Tyrconnell later that year scotched their efforts for a commission of grace. When Tyrconnell became lord deputy (February 1687) Keating found himself sharing the court of common pleas with two Roman catholic colleagues. His political influence was now at a low ebb.
In the winter and early spring of 1688–9, in the wake of James II's loss of the English throne, Keating appears to have subscribed his name to all proclamations issuing from Dublin Castle requiring compliance with the existing authorities. In early January 1689 Keating wrote to John Temple (qv) in England about the events surrounding the removal of James II from the throne and the position of William of Orange (qv) and Princess Mary. In this missive he sought to give reassurance regarding contemporaneous events in Ireland and to downplay reports concerning the anti-protestant bias of Tyrconnell's government. This may have been, as J. G. Simms (qv) suggested, an attempt on the part of the Dublin Castle administration to open negotiations with William, though it may also have represented a play for time to prepare for war. Among the results of Keating's letter was the arrival of Richard Hamilton (qv) in Ireland as an envoy from William, although he quickly switched his allegiance to James.
Keating's own loyalties over the following months are more difficult to untangle. When James II arrived in Ireland (March 1689), Keating was given a prominent position in the pageant welcoming him into Dublin. In spite of this, he was dismissed from the privy council the next day. One source has it that he was placed in prison by the Jacobite authorities the following September (Luttrell, Brief historical relation . . . , i, 587), and the same source later states that he entered into communication with William of Orange's forces soon after the battle of the Boyne. Other sources, on the other hand, have highlighted the close involvement of Keating's family with the Jacobites. William King (qv), for instance, could point in 1691 to Keating's nephew, Edmund, being an officer in the Jacobite army and to his having served with James II at Derry.
In the months following the battle of the Boyne (1 July 1690), Keating's associations with James II's administration seem to have stood against him. Luttrell claims that he was indicted on a charge of high treason in the court of king's bench in December 1690; he certainly lost his post of chief justice of the common pleas in January 1691. He died later that year from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Some sources imply that his suicide was caused by a bout of depression resulting from his failure to be reappointed to office, though this cannot be definitively established.