Claudine Keane, the wife of football coach Robbie Keane, has written to Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald to seek a meeting to discuss an alleged smear campaign she says has put her family at risk.

Ms Keane, a former model and mother of two children, has been active on social media defending her husband from criticism and online attacks for managing Israeli side Maccabi Tel Aviv during the Israeli-Hamas conflict.

Both online and in her letter to the Sinn Féin leader she complained about social media posts from Chris Andrews, a former Sinn Féin TD who lost his Dáil seat last month but who is now running for the Seanad, and posts from a Sinn Féin press officer. She complained that posts about her husband “incited hate” against the Keanes and made it “unsafe” for them to live in Ireland.

Ms Keane complained that Sinn Féin posts about her husband have led to the family receiving threatening messages, including from people saying they know where the Keanes live and where their children go to school.

Robbie Keane quit the Israeli club side one year into a two-year deal last summer after winning the Israeli premier league title, league cup and guiding the team into the last 16 of the Europa Conference League. Mr Keane, who took on the job in June 2023, said he had remained manager until the end of the season despite criticism from some Irish sources as he had a “duty of care” to players and his management team who moved to Israel to work with him.

Robbie Keane poses with the scarf of Maccabi Tel Aviv football club, on June 27, 2023, in Tel Aviv. Photo: Jack Guez/AFP via Getty

Criticism of Keane’s time in Israel was renewed last November when he was invited by the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) to present caps to the Irish squad ahead of games against Finland and England.

Mr Andrews responded to an FAI post on X about the caps presentation calling it “extremely disappointing”. He accused Robbie Keane of having a role in “sportswashing apartheid and genocidal Israel”.

Chris Andrews’s post on X was reposted by Luke O’Riordan, a Sinn Féin press officer who is also a media officer for League of Ireland club Bohemian FC. The Dublin club has been a strong supporter of Palestinian causes and held a friendly against the Palestinian women’s team last year in Dalymount Park.

In 2020 Claudine Keane was the target of a Sinn Féin activist in Wexford who resigned his party membership when he was unmasked as being behind a “Pee O’Neill” Twitter account that posted abusive comments about Ms Keane and others.

At the time Eoin Ó Broin, a Sinn Féin TD, said the party would have thrown the activist out if he had not resigned. This prompted Claudine Keane to ask Mr Ó Broin in recent days how Sinn Féin can support Mr Andrews’s Seanad campaign given Mr Andrews was previously unmasked as being behind an anonymous Twitter account that attacked Fianna Fáil members, the party Mr Andrews was in at that time.

Ms Keane called Mr Andrews a “notorious troll”.

In X posts, Claudine Keane claimed Mr Andrews’s messages about her husband are “defamatory” and that he had stirred up attacks on Mr Keane “while I lived here alone with my two kids, terrified every time he personally named my husband, a sportsman, and used him as a political pawn for his agenda”.

Former Sinn Féin TD Chris Andrews

In messages posted to Mr Ó Broin, Ms Keane claimed Mr Andrews’s comments on radio and social media about her husband were highly defamatory.

“This again incited hate from his followers,” she said. Ms Keane said posts about the caps presentation made her feel unsafe as they resulted in her receiving “hateful messages”.

“Everything correlates to their comments,” she said. “My kids have lived here for six years they go to school and live here. They play schoolboy football and League of Ireland. Chris is liable for defamation. Luke rallied up the troops as PR for Sinn Féin. I sometimes question his judgment. I believe we should get an apology for singling us out and the hate and abuse as well.”

Ms Keane said the impact was so great they thought about leaving Ireland. She asked how Sinn Féin could be “reckless” towards “a young family and their well-being”.

Sinn Féin, Mr Andrews and Mr O’Riordan were approached for comment but did not respond.