"The Kerry Secret"

[inchperfect]

When I speak to new people from other counties and football gets brought up I'm often asked: "What's the Kerry secret? Why is it that Kerry are so successful?" I have a hard time answering this. I'm 21 years old so I don't have the same level of knowledge as the old school fans like my dad and uncles. My brother says that the way the county championship is laid out, with regional teams as well as clubs, gives exposure to top players from poor clubs like for example Killian Young with Renard and Declan O'Sullivan with Dromid getting the opportunity to win county titles with South Kerry and allows the county to be scouted more easily.

But I want to go way back to the first couple of All-Irelands we won, in the first few years in the last century. Why did we win those All-Irelands? Was there a revolutionary manager we had a la Bill Shankly at Liverpool or Busby at United who got the ball rolling, giving us a platform to have further success? Dr. Eamonn is the most well-known manager from the first half of the century but the he started coaching us in 1924, 21 years after our first All-Ireland. Was it because of our natural landscape, with mountains, beaches, cliffs, sea and lakes almost like a perfect natural training complex for physical fitness before there were training complexes? Or did we just coincidentally stumble upon a golden generation of players at the start? I haven't really found anything online.

I've always been curious myself. Dublin's success can probably be put down to just the sheer population of the place and the fact it's economically better off than other counties so it's more likely for top players to come through. But with Kerry, it's more complex. I've got a hunch that the secret to our successes lies in the first few All Irelands we won. And from there, the interest in football in the county meant we'd always produce great players and teams. I'd love to hear other people's thoughts.

Apologies if there's been a similar thread before.

[thebigfortidude]

Personally I think it is down to skills taught at a young age and completion between players for places on club and county teams. If you play with a club or live in a county where the skill level is not as great as Kerry's this is the level of skill you can hope to achieve. If you look at the calibre of hurler that Kilkenny produce year after year you can only conclude that the standard required to achieve a place on the county team is greater than in counties that do not have the same success as Kilkenny.
I remember years ago going to watch matches in the Duhallow Championship and also going to see matches in the O'Donoghue cup. Even though both championships included rural club teams with limited resources the standard of football in the O'Donoghue Cup games was far superior to the of their North Cork neighbour's.

[fitz]

It's a very interesting topic Inch, and specifically as you say the first era, where everyone started at 0.I think once success came and regularly, the mindset of expectancy was set and a tradition developed that has been maintained ever since like in Kilkenny with hurling. I have no information to answer your pertinent question, it would be great to hear insight from others

[kerryexile]

This is a question that much older and more seasoned minds than yours have pontificated on and didn’t come to a consensus.
I agree that a few wins early on got it started and then of course nothing succeeds like success.

There is a second part to the question - why have Kerry adapted and bounced back after every era where different counties introduced different types of game to bring success to themselves.

I think there are a number of reasons for this.
Players from any club at any level will get a chance to wear the county jersey giving the maximum selection. I know of counties where players from the “wrong” club will not make it.
In Kerry the finer skills of the game are celebrated – the defence splitting pass or the fifty yard shot over the black spot. The negative aspects of the game are “not an option”.
There is also a natural understanding amongst good players how to read each others play even if they haven’t played a lot with each other – remember Maurice Fitzgerald and Mike Frank Russell in 1997 when Mike Frank was only 19 or 20.

In fairness to clubs around the country they do try hard but they are facing difficult challenges. Often underage training is organised for Saturday morning and maybe 2 evenings during the week. Training may be from 11 to 12:30 - then these players are back with their friends by 1:00 and are often messing around with a soccer ball and assembled plastic posts for the rest of the day. By Saturday evening they have spent much more time perfecting soccer skills. In Kerry you do see the H shaped posts in green spaces so the kids are perfecting their football skills like kicking points.

[inchperfect]

May 1, 2015 9:35:32 GMT fitz said:

It's a very interesting topic Inch, and specifically as you say the first era, where everyone started at 0.I think once success came and regularly, the mindset of expectancy was set and a tradition developed that has been maintained ever since like in Kilkenny with hurling. I have no information to answer your pertinent question, it would be great to hear insight from others

True. It's interesting that you mention Kilkenny, as far as I know there's a history of cricket in the county, going back to before the GAA was founded. If that's true then that can be linked to their success in hurling. 'Henry Shefflin' certainly sounds like a cricketer!

[himself]

Kerry had a decent cricket tradition. Kerry also had a strong tradition of athletics meetings. When teachers trained in Dublin came to Kerry with this new game designed by the well-known athlete Maurice Davin and intended to foster a gaelic rather than British sporting culture, it was quickly adopted, especially when promoted by men like Jack Hussey and JP O'Sullivan, hugely respected community pillars. Moore Stack (Austin's father and another highly respected figure) supported a GAA meeting in opposition to the Kerry Cricket Club's athletic meeting, it had a huge attendance in spite of the main newspaper condemning it.
Kerry was strongly nationalist and the GAA was soon absorbed as a natural part of that culture. In fact, the GAA had to deal with huge internal conflicts to avoid being completely subsumed by the IRA.
Hurling did not get a fair shake early on in Kerry GAA. The Ballyduff team that won our first ever All Ireland in 1891 were refused legitimate expenses and rightly felt very aggrieved. The early County Board had Tralee, Killarney, and Killorglin men who were more interested in football than hurling - note that Tralee Mitchels were hugely dominant in both codes after taking over from Laune rangers (JP O'Sullivan's team had switched straight from rugby to football early on) in football. JP O'Sullivan and John Langford and others did in fact support Ballyduff, but people didn't play display colours in those days.
Tralee hurling teams were supplemented and eventually almost subsumed by North Kerry hurlers working in or near Tralee, and I believe that prevented the town nurturing a local hurling tradition, something which hopefully Austin Stacks and latterly Parnells can reverse for the decades to come. Men like Jpr Barrett and John Joe Sheehy were known as great hurlers - a generation later, only one Tralee native started for Mitchels hurling team. The roots died fairly fast, and that strengthened our commitment to one code.
Equally, unlike the likes of Dublin, Cork, and certainly Northern Ireland, Kerry didn't develop any real soccer tradition (yes, I know about the exception of Valentia) until the fifties, and even then it was fairly isolated and no real challenge to the predominance of gaelic football in Kerry hearts.
There was a great tradition of fostering the youth in Kerry. The priests approved of sports for healthy young men and men like Br. Turner, Br. Murray (for whom the Munster Colleges Cup is named), Dr. Eamonn O'Sullivan 9the effective founder of Kerry colleges football, he did far more for Kerry than merely train the senior team for decades) and Micheal O Ruairc did incredible work in nurturing roots. Bord na nOg was founded in 1968 under the Chairmanship of Dr. Jim Brosnan, who also organised an adult 'county league' so that players could get regular games - I believe that it was Gerald McKenna who actually outlined the proposals for Bord na nOg but I am open to correction there.
In the seventies, hard work was done in the background, especially by Bord na bPairceanna under Michael O'Connor (later Chairman of the Munster Council) to ensure legality of title and decent standard of facilities. A generation of young people who watched Micko's Golden Years team every opportunity to emulate their heroes.
I do believe that our divisional structure, despite a number of flaws which show up repeatedly (highlighted often nowadays with clubs assigned to divisional teams having an understandable priority in Intermediate and Junior Championships) gives a huge benefit to our inter-county structure. Good players get to play alongside and against good players regularly enough to lift all standards. Kerry win more at football than counties without it. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc, is it a coincidence? I don't think so.
Kerry nowadays has an incredibly strong development pathway from Cumann na mBunscoil, through standardised club games and development squads, all the way up to the Hogan Stand in September. It has facilities which are constantly upgraded - it is also able to raise the funds to do that, we are a very, very well-run county financially compared to most others and have always been able to argue our case convincingly at Munster and Croke Park level - that's a hard job that's less appreciated than it should be. It has committed coaches all the way down to the grass roots. It has a good system of revealing and then nurturing young talent.Despite huge surges in popularity in all other codes, gaelic football still hugely dominates the social landscape.
All of these give us an advantage in maintaining the strong traditions that many men (and few enough women, in what was a paternalistic organisation in a paternalistic, church-dominated society), too many of them forgotten now, worked very hard to give to Kerry.
That would be a synopsis of my own thinking on it, anyway. Of course, it is still a work in progress, and always will be.
Dr. Richard McElligott's book, 'Forging a Kingdom' is in my opinion an incredible source for the first 50 years of Kerry GAA, I would recommend it to anyone.

[kerrygold]

Tis something a lot more spiritual than just the set up of competitions within the county. Explain how a team of kids went up to Croker in '75 and 2014 and with a few old hands and won All-Irelands.

We see counties like Mayo leave their souls above in Croker and can't cross the line.

[tadgh10]

Not sure what the secret is but here in kerry it is the dream of most young fellas to wear the green and gold and will spend hours practicing, the pride felt by a parish especially smaller clubs to have a county player is immense,not saying this is the secret but I don't think any other county in football have these same desires as much as kerry

[Mickmack]

Grit.

That's part of it anyway.

and Kerry wants to win more often, and more consistently that a lot of others and several strands are pulling together towards that goal. Look at the work Jack has done. Teachers deserve huge credit.

[Ballyfireside]

I have written a few versions of The Kerry Ingredient and like others, and with the greatest respect to our younger contributors, nobody can nail this one, and possibly because there is an infinite number of reasons why we are what we are. It is discussed every minute of the day in some part of the world and nobody is ever any the wiser.

Regarding a few of the comments already
1. Mick O'Dwyer in my view set a certain standard that has since been maintained, a bit like when they talk of Denis Brosnan 'setting the tone' in Kerry Group at the outset, 'The Kerry Way', and indeed there are many similarities, well there would be. I am doing a literary working entitled The Kerry Cow and it poses the question that inchperfect touches on, i.e. was it that we had no option but to succeed? An infamous line by a Lyne man once said that with the hoors of mountains behind us and the sea before us, we had few options. My take is that we farmed between the rocks putting spark to our inflammable imaginations.

2. There is a strong correlation between hurling and good land, even in Kerry and also look at Donegal, Tipperary, Galway, etc. It stems old landlords having their own shinty teams and there is definitely a book in this.

3. Teachers certainly played a major role and Johnny Flaherty in Listowel had his own production line that shaped 3 of the defenders of what is arguably the greatest football team of all time, i.e. Deenihan, Paidi and Horse Kennelly, sadly the latter two are no longer with us. I would say Eamonn is a better trainer that he is a teacher and how he pulled last year out of the fire will mesmerise investigators 'till the end of time. I suppose they know how to motivate and nurture youngsters in the classroom and so apply it to football. Horse Kennelly was doubted by many but O'Dwyer obviously knew how to assemble a strategic team and Brosnan is world renouned in this craft and I have also identified similarities between Denis and Paidi. Ah maybe there is a we secret too that we don't tell, we just tease the world with an annual reminder in late September!!!

Himself's comments are a revelation and he might tell us more as he sounds as if he is knowledgeable here, I find it mind blowing so good stuff and give up more man, this is serious. Amy views on Forging a Kingdom, it is on my to read list.

And for the very patient I have a marathon version of The Kerry Ingredient that takes as long to read as it takes to down a bottle of whiskey, although I am not so sure one should do both at the same time.

Seriously, Kerry is definitely different when it comes to football and that it is a pure mystery is an infinite oil well for writing poetry so it makes my job a bit easier. I have often been challenged on here when I air my view of what we have that I don't see in other counties, although Jim McGuinness has also raised the bar with Doonegal and as others have done elsewhere, e.g. Mickey Harte and even John Evans with Roscommon, and then Dalo with Dublin hurling. But we are also not resting on our laurels and last year was pure magic, in my view the most remarkable in recent times. To do it without Gooch and for veterans Star and AO'M to play leading roles when the pace peaked, and then for a new recruit to make man of the match. Awesome stuff. Joe Brolly needs to holiday in places like Rathmore and Cahersiveen to meet the production line.

[Mickmack]

May 2, 2015 15:25:53 GMT Ballyfireside said:

I have written a few versions of The Kerry Ingredient and like others, and with the greatest respect to our younger contributors, nobody can nail this one, and possibly because there is an infinite number of reasons why we are what we are. It is discussed every minute of the day in some part of the world and nobody is ever any the wiser.

Regarding a few of the comments already
1. Mick O'Dwyer in my view set a certain standard that has since been maintained, a bit like when they talk of Denis Brosnan 'setting the tone' in Kerry Group at the outset, 'The Kerry Way', and indeed there are many similarities, well there would be. I am doing a literary working entitled The Kerry Cow and it poses the question that inchperfect touches on, i.e. was it that we had no option but to succeed? An infamous line by a Lyne man once said that with the hoors of mountains behind us and the sea before us, we had few options. My take is that we farmed between the rocks putting spark to our inflammable imaginations.

2. There is a strong correlation between hurling and good land, even in Kerry and also look at Donegal, Tipperary, Galway, etc. It stems old landlords having their own shinty teams and there is definitely a book in this.

3. Teachers certainly played a major role and Johnny Flaherty in Listowel had his own production line that shaped 3 of the defenders of what is arguably the greatest football team of all time, i.e. Deenihan, Paidi and Horse Kennelly, sadly the latter two are no longer with us. I would say Eamonn is a better trainer that he is a teacher and how he pulled last year out of the fire will mesmerise investigators 'till the end of time. I suppose they know how to motivate and nurture youngsters in the classroom and so apply it to football. Horse Kennelly was doubted by many but O'Dwyer obviously knew how to assemble a strategic team and Brosnan is world renouned in this craft and I have also identified similarities between Denis and Paidi. Ah maybe there is a we secret too that we don't tell, we just tease the world with an annual reminder in late September!!!

Himself's comments are a revelation and he might tell us more as he sounds as if he is knowledgeable here, I find it mind blowing so good stuff and give up more man, this is serious. Amy views on Forging a Kingdom, it is on my to read list.

And for the very patient I have a marathon version of The Kerry Ingredient that takes as long to read as it takes to down a bottle of whiskey, although I am not so sure one should do both at the same time.

Seriously, Kerry is definitely different when it comes to football and that it is a pure mystery is an infinite oil well for writing poetry so it makes my job a bit easier.

This is true.

Clare is another example.
You probably have read THE KERRY ANTHOLOGY by Gabriel Fitzmaurice...The extract about Aogan ORathaille dates back three hundred years and it says that hurling was played round Sliabh Luachra and over into Kenmare when it still survives today. The wealthy landlords fostered the game of hurling.......all the great houses where the land was fertile.

[Ballyfireside]

I didn't read Fitzmaurices book myself so that's another one for the list. Googling 'Hurling Cornwall' and maybe also add 'Ireland' throws up some interesting stuff. Some may not be aware that Cornish people have their own language and they were sent West, like the Welsh, hence the lack of affection these races have for all things English, although there will be better historians than myself about. All interesting stuff, maybe the library in Croke Park is the place to go as some stuff may not be on The Internet. I am overstretched myself these days but if anyone does follow up I trust they will report back.

[Mickmack]

In early November 1915, on the weekend of the All-Ireland final, the Tralee Republican leader Austin Stack dispatched three men disguised as Kerry football supporters to Dublin.

Tralee man Austin Stack whom the famous GAA pitch in the town is named after. Picture: Domnick Walsh/Eye Focus
Tralee man Austin Stack whom the famous GAA pitch in the town is named after. Picture: Domnick Walsh/Eye Focus

Kerry and Wexford were about to do battle on the field of play and for Stack the game provided perfect cover for a plan to smuggle arms back into the Kingdom.

Pádraig Pearse had visited Stack in Tralee that October and the two men hatched a plan to arm volunteers in the lead up to the 1916 Rising.

What the Republican leaders didn’t plan for was that Kerry would lose that All-Ireland and one of the three men sent on the mission would take the result to heart, ending up useless and drunk in the bar of Wynne’s Hotel in Dublin.

In his fascinating new 496-page book Forging a Kingdom: the GAA in Kerry 1884-1934, Dr Richard McElligott explains the elaborate plan — and how the 1916 Rising could well have been scuppered by a painter from Killarney who got too drunk, distraught after his beloved Kingdom’s loss.

“Pearse wanted Stack to collect about 20/30 rifles from the O’Rahilly’s [Michael O’Rahilly] house in south Dublin and smuggle them back to Kerry,” said Dr McElligott. “Stack sent his lieutenant in the Tralee corps of the Irish Volunteers, Annascaul’s Tadhg Kennedy, to Dublin with two other volunteers — all disguised as Kerry supporters. However, when Kerry lost one of the men was distraught and he ended up in awful state.

“Next morning he was still worse for wear as Kennedy and the other men went in two cars to the O’Rahilly’s house. Kennedy told the drunk man to stand guard as he was of no other use. When the two re-emerged from the house the drunk was gone, along with one of the cars. In the end Kennedy and the other volunteer had to put 20 or 30 rifles into one car, head for Knightsbridge [Heuston Station] and smuggle the guns down on the train all the way to Tralee. It was mad stuff. It’s amazing that the whole plan for the 1916 Rising could have been scuppered because of a drunk painter from Killarney. He turned up in Killarney none the worse for wear about a week later!”

The era chosen by Dr McElligott, 1884-1934, was a sulphurous time in Irish history, which, he says, is the reason he chose it.

“Those 50 years in Irish history, in a broader context, are absolutely crucial. The time period deals with the end of British rule and the establishment of the Irish State. It’s remarkable, however, the influence that the GAA had on that impact.”

Come the time of the War of Independence and the resultant Civil War, Kerry was divided. John Joe Sheehy and Joe Barrett, two die-hard anti-treaty men, went on to win an All-Ireland as teammates of Con Brosnan, of the Free State Army, and Garda Paul Russell.

Dr McElligott — a native of Kilflynn, six miles outside Tralee, just off the Listowel road — learned that this Kerry team of 1924 was seen as an example to the country of how things could be — but that didn’t mean the players got on.

“They hated each other off the field. The anti-treaty men would come to matches as spectators. They would then slip out of their suits, already togged off underneath, and go out and play the match. Afterwards, they would file away as quietly as possible.”

Kerry was deeply Republican at this time. The rancour often spilled onto the field of play and continued within clubs, as Dr McElligott explains. “John Joe Sheehy, due to his position with the IRA, had great influence in Kerry. The Republicans really had all the power then. As [Eamon] de Valera came to power the Blueshirts were just starting out and divisions started to open up. This led to matches being called off as they descended into mass brawls. Clubs started splitting in two, or certain clubs wouldn’t affiliate with certain divisional boards because they thought they were the opposition politically. It was chaos.”

The county had earlier dealt with a period where the GAA was almost wiped out.

“It was never preordained that Kerry were going to be good at football or hurling. In the 1890s the GAA in Kerry almost collapses. Rugby was becoming more and more popular and the GAA was dying on its feet. Then TF O’Sullivan was very influential in bringing in the ban on ‘foreign games’ in 1901 and that saves the GAA in Kerry. The county could easily have become a rugby stronghold akin to Limerick or Cork.”

Dr McElligott notes the fact that one North Kerry man, Listowel’s TF O’Sullivan, was so instrumental in introducing the ban on ‘foreign games’ while another, Ballybunion’s Tom Woulfe, was key to its removal in 1971.

So why was Kerry so strong, even in those early years of the GAA? Dr McElligott — who started work on the book in September 2008 — distilled the phenomenon down to the fact that Kerry was simply well organised.

“It was just about the people on the ground. Kerry were very lucky at the time to have people like Maurice Moynihan, Austin Stack and Listowel’s TF O’Sullivan. They were hard-working GAA organisers.”

The book documents the establishment of some of Kerry’s first clubs including Killorglin’s Laune Rangers, Dr Crokes, Tralee Mitchels and Kenmare. Hurling featured largely in Kenmare and North Kerry and theBallyduff team, also including men from other clubs in Kerry, won the county’s first All-Ireland, in hurling, in 1891.

Other notable features of the book are how the initial rules of the GAA envisaged a 21-player a-side game, with winners being decided by the highest number of goals scored. Points were only used to decide the match if no goals had been scored.

In 1889, the Kerry GAA was the first to reconfigure the scoring system of Gaelic games by making a goal equal to five points. This rule was adapted by the GAA for its national competitions in 1895, while in 1896 the rules were altered to make one goal equal to three points. In 1893, the GAA reduced the number of players to 17-a-side and Kerry’s first All-Ireland victory (in hurling) was the first major game to be played with this number of players. In 1913, the number of players was reduced again to 15-a-side, and again Kerry’s memorable victory over Louth in the seminal Croke Cup final was the first game to be played between 30 players.

Forging a Kingdom also touches on Kerry’s maiden All-Ireland victory in Gaelic football in 1905 (when they were represented by Tralee Mitchels). An epic three-match saga with Kildare not only broke all official Irish attendance records but ensured Gaelic football was, from then on, Ireland’s most popular sport.

With the first 50 years of Kerry GAA history penned is Dr McElligott leaving the door ajar for another tome on the remainder of the 20th Century? “I’d love to it, but time and money are the big considerations. I would love to continue and I think every county should work towards a book like this. They are invaluable.”

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