THEY SAY football is linked with religion in Kerry – but it’s not far from politics either. And, coming up to an All-Ireland final, it seems only natural that the county with the most All-Ireland titles (36) should have the man with the most GAA medals in the Dáil.
Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht Jimmy Deenihan, is a five-time All-Ireland senior football winner with Kerry. He holds an U-21 All-Ireland medal and he captained the Kerry team to All-Ireland success in 1981. A native of Finuge, he said he was “supremely confident – like all Kerry men” ahead of meeting Dublin (football’s second most successful team with 22 titles).
Deenihan is currently the only All-Ireland senior medal holder in the Dáil. “Everyone thought it was a prerequisite for an All-Ireland medal holder to get into the Dáil after Jack Lynch. In fact there have been very few,” he said, mentioning the late John Wilson (and former tánaiste who won twice with Cavan) as one of a handful of such TDs.
The Minister said his favourite clash with Dublin was in 1975 when Kerry were inexperienced. “It was my first All-Ireland. Dublin had a great team. They were hot favourites. We won and we were the youngest team ever to win an All-Ireland.”
This week there was only one word in Killarney in the heartland of the team captain: “Gooch”. The 28-year old Colm Cooper is known by the Killarney pronunciation of “Goochie” everywhere “except on his doorstep”, the mayor of Killarney stressed.
Seán Counihan, the Labour mayor and Colm Cooper’s neighbour in Ardshanavooly, the housing estate which has spawned basketball, camogie and a range of champion athletes, said: “In Ardshanavooly he gets the full respect of Colm. You very seldom use the nickname around here.”
While there is the usual scramble for tickets this year, demand for local screenings has become huge too due to a mixture of the economy and the dearth of tickets.
The biggest venue, the 2,000-seat INEC events centre in Killarney, has ordered what’s reputed to be the largest screen in Ireland: 55 sq m. The INEC is offering free entry to anyone wearing a Dublin jersey, spokesman John O’Donoghue, a Fianna Fáil councillor, said.
Meanwhile, Dublin defender Cian O’Sullivan who will mark the Gooch owes his talent and his pace to his extensive Kerry roots, it is being claimed in the Kingdom. His aunt, former Fine Gael mayor of Killarney Sheila Casey, recalled yesterday how it was on holidays to the family farm in Ballyhar that Cian cut his teeth on the track as well as the football field.
Cian (23) is the youngest of three children of Coláiste Eanna school principal John O’Sullivan who is from Kilgarvan in south Kerry. His mother Noreen, a Dublin bank official, is one of six sisters, the Caseys of Ballyhar near Killarney.