Francis Keough was born in Connecticut, the youngest son of Irish immigrants. Educated at St. Thomas Seminary in Bloomfield, CT, he sent to the Grand Seminary of Saint-Sulpice in France in 1911. The outbreak of World War I forced him to return to the United States, where he completed his theological education at St. Bernard's Seminary in New York. Keough was ordained a priest in 1916; in 1919, he was became the private secretary of the Bishop of Hartford, CT and the diocesan director for the Society for the Propagation of the Faith. In 1935, Keough received his episcopal consecration and was appointed the Bishop of Providence, Rhode Island. In 1947, Pope Pius XII elevated Keough to Archbishop of Baltimore. In addition to his archiepiscopal duties, Keough also served as a trustee for The Catholic University of America and as three-term chairman of the National Catholic Welfare Conference. Keough died in Baltimore in 1961.