Sideline Cut:The ingenious thing about Kerry football teams is not that they have won 34 All-Ireland titles but that they have done so without provoking national hatred and envy.
When it comes to the matter of Gaelic football, Kerry are undoubtedly the landlords, the occupants of the Big House, and we, the peasants, adore them for it.
Kerry have never flaunted their wealth. If the Lord above wanted to preserve a blueprint of the quintessential Kerry face, he would surely choose the image of Páidí Ó Sé in full, glorious grimace.
Páidí is often described as a rogue, and when he walked in the green-and-pale-gold stripes around Croke Park during the All-Ireland parade in the dozens of finals in which he played, there was a touch of Saturday Night Fever about the strut.
But for all the glinting mischief, Páidí was like a shaman when it came to superstitions and lucky charms. He was apt to believe there were endless influences floating around the cosmos that could affect the performance of Kerry on the football field, and he did his best to ward them off.
When he was happy, Páidí could look ecstatic, but mostly, during his days as a fiery wing back and later as the silver-bullet-headed manager, he looked faraway and pensive, as if examining storm clouds that might or might not be about to rush upon him.
That look of intense foreboding is the everlasting Kerry football expression. History dictates that in the All-Ireland football championship matters will probably turn out all right. But Kerry folks have a default setting that keeps them in tune to the things that may go wrong.
That is why tomorrow's fandango with Dublin is the real deal down in Kingdom country. The theory that Dublin versus Kerry is the greatest rivalry in Gaelic football has been undermined by two bothersome realities: the counties rarely meet in the championship; and when they do, Kerry tend to win.
Acknowledging that Kerry have had the upper hand in the duel for quite some time now, big Bomber Liston grinned on television the other night as he noted the last time Dublin won the fixture was when Elvis was alive (for an instant we wondered if an Elvis Ferris or an Elvis Brosnan had lined out for the county).
But Bomber was talking about Presley, the handsomest man of the 20th century apart from Maurice Fitzgerald and the most distinctive voice in the world except when he happened to be in the same room as Pat Spillane. But Bomber's cheeky quip is as close as you will ever get to schadenfreude from a Kerry man.
Out of caution and respect, the Kerry people will turn out in numbers for tomorrow's semi-final. It is an early start for them. Traditionally, the Rose of Tralee served to remind Kerry folk to check the paper to see which county the boys would be dispatching in the semi-final.
September is generally the month for the annual Kerry exodus to the capital. But it is as easy to get the Christmas shopping done in late August as in September. Kerry folks have the championship odyssey down to a fine art.
They leave behind the beautiful lakes, misty mountains and happy towns early in the morning, stop for sandwiches in Portlaoise and drive on to the capital singing songs about the sheer beauty of Jack O'Shea fielding a ball in Fitzgerald Stadium.
Should they cross the border into Offaly, they fall silent out of respect for 1982. After parking alongside the Royal Canal, they meet friends under the clock at Eason's at four o'clock on Saturday and ask directions to Clery's.
At night, unless there's a John B Keane masterpiece running in the Abbey, they gather in authentic Kingdom pubs. You will find many thousands of them down by the Merchant on the quays, singing dirges about Banna Strand and comely maidens from Glenflesk in their soft, melodious voices and talking about the feats of Paddy Bawn and Tadhgie Lyne and the Horse Kennelly and Maurice Fitz.
To strangers they are welcoming. Kerry people speak at an extraordinary speed, often coming out with up to 10,000 words of poetry and charming witticisms in a single minute. Quickly, they make outsiders feel part of the magic - as if they too belonged to this All-Ireland-winning culture.
Tourists passing the Kerry drinking havens by chance on big championship weekends have been known to swoon with delight at the sheer exoticism of listening to the Listowel gang savouring the porter.
The Kerry crowds stay in hotels like Jurys and the Burlington, decent establishments where the manager is often from Tralee or Killarney and you can still get ham sandwiches served on actual bread and the football gods of the 1970s - huge, chiselled men all, who still look like they could go 15 rounds with the Klitschko brothers and are chivalrous as Arthur of legend - like to meet and reminisce over a pint.
If the hotels are booked out, the rest of Kerry is welcome to stay in the house of Jack O'Shea or Con Houlihan or Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh, the only three Kerrymen to ever actually live in Dublin (they stay just to keep an eye on things in case Kevin Heffernan returns to management).
The Kerry crowd get first Mass on Gardiner Street when, more often than not, the priest will mention his Killorglin grandmother or the uncle Pat who played in 25 and he will extol the Lord above to look kindly on the men in hoops.
At lunchtime, Kerry will meet with non-Kerry friends for more pints at Quinns - Kerrymen and Kerrywomen have extraordinary constitutions.
"What do you think?" they will ask, genuinely interested. As if it matters what we think - we, whose counties appear in September about as often as Halley's Comet appears on the night sky.
"Kerry should do it," we venture bravely.
Our Kerry friends go all Páidí then, grimacing and shaking heads and mumbling something about the Gooch's hamstring or Spillane's column in the Sunday World or the referee. Then they sing a ballad about Darragh and head off to Croke Park.
Like magicians, Kerry folks are able to make the rest of us believe we should feel sorry for them in the odd years they don't win the whole shebang. It is no surprise that Offaly have not won an All-Ireland since 1982; they have been trying ever since to cope with the guilt of Séamus Derby's goal.
Any time Offaly look like producing a good young team, the Bomber or John Egan or Charlie Nelligan appears on television to reminisce, with a quivering lip and teary eye, about the five in a row, and everyone in the Faithful County is overcome with remorse all over again.
Back when Kerry went a staggering 10 years without an All-Ireland title, the nation was threatened with mutiny. Governments fell and there were several tribunals. The implication was it would be a national scandal if the playing career of Maurice Fitzgerald ended without the adornment of at least one - but preferably five - All-Ireland medals. The Cahirciveen legend was sufficiently modest to merely excel as a footballer for 10 years, but in 1997 his patience finally snapped and he decided he had better win one by himself.
That superhuman hour became known as Maurice's Final, when the tanned one hit a laconic nine points, looking more troubled and painfully modest with each score. He retired a few years later, clearly embarrassed by his own brilliance. Kerry have kept winning All-Irelands anyway.
If Kerry lose tomorrow, they will graciously wish Dublin people luck and retreat back to the Kingdom in genuine anguish. The team will shack up in a tiny caravan in the shadow of Mount Brandon, drink poitín for a month and then punish themselves with six months of inhuman training and win the next three All-Irelands in a row.
If they win this clash of the ages against Dublin, they will be pleased and delighted, buy porter all night and explain, in their torrential way, about how, despite the 34 previous titles, they just had a bad feeling about this one.
They will tell you they are delighted just to be there. If they don't know you, they will ask what county you are from.
"Donegal," you might reply, and the Kerry men will nod reverently.
"That was some beating you gave our boys in the league," they will say solemnly.
"Sure that's a fabulous team ye have up there," they will add with what to the innocent might pass for envy.
"Ye'll take some beating next year."
Yup, we will think. And more than likely from the Kingdom.
Kerry folk. If they weren't so likeable, you would really have to hate them.
