Unique Kerry
KILLINAN END
There are many teams that have won an All-Ireland Club title now a long way from winning it again. But one team which can genuinely claim to be unique in the annals of the GAA is East Kerry, the first ever winners of the All-Ireland club football title. As a divisional team the competition is now beyond them.The Kingdom has an unusual County Championship. Since West Kerry’s first County Senior championship win in 1984 – which facilitated Páidí Ó Sé’s successful captaincy of Kerry a year later – half of the county titles have been won by divisional teams. Perhaps the feats of club teams like Laune Rangers (Killorglin) and Dr Crokes (Killarney) who managed to achieve periods of domination in these decades are even more praiseworthy for competing against packed teams in a county as strong as Kerry. The sight of Laune Rangers (All-Ireland Senior champions 1996) playing Austin Stacks (All-Ireland champions 1977 & Munster Senior finalists as recently as 2021) in the Intermediate Football final last weekend tells something of the challenges for regular clubs in Kerry’s County championship.
Their divisional teams are not just regular combination teams in the way that clubs amalgamate at underage levels. In Kerry, divisional teams are embedded long-term entities. There are changes from time to time depending on the status of their constituent clubs, for example, when West Kerry won that 1984 County Final, they had players from Lispole, Annascaul, Castlegregory, An Ghaeltacht and Dingle.
Dingle or Daingean Uí Chúis have been a Senior club for many years representing the county in last year’s Munster championship having won a competition restricted to clubs only. An Ghaeltacht, in the heyday of the Ó Sé brothers, Darragh Ó Cinnéide and Aodhán MacGearailt during the 2000s won the Kerry County championship. These teams drop out of the reckoning for inclusion in the divisional teams. Naturally, this can have a big impact on the standard of the divisional team, yet it remains a constant on the local scene.Occasionally loyalties can be disputed. In 1977 the Kerry County final between Shannon Rangers and Feale Rangers was, if you know your rivers, an all-North Kerry affair. As recently as the previous couple of years some clubs had moved from Shannon Rangers to Feale Rangers (divisional teams both). By the time of the 1977 final Shannon Rangers was made up of players from just two clubs, Ballylongford and Beale. The former produced All-Ireland winners from 1969-70, Paud & Éamon O’Donoghue, while Beale included Ogie Moran at wing-back and a 19-year-old Eoin ‘Bomber’ Liston at midfield. Within twelve months Liston would become the talk of the nation, within a few years an icon. He won his only County Senior championship medal in 1977 before playing even a League match for Kerry.East Kerry has been the division in the ascendancy in recent years. The form of the Clifford brothers has been a great driver in the division’s success in winning the County title four times in five years. They still don’t quite match their predecessors of 1968-70 who carved a unique place in history by beating the same team three years’ running in the Kerry County final. The unfortunate victims were Waterville which included Mick O’Dwyer and Mick O’Connell. While Mick O’Dwyer was to be expected as Waterville’s chief scorer, East Kerry had an unusual one in Johnny Culloty, resident Kerry goalkeeper of the day, who operated at corner-forward as he had done in Kerry’s successful 1955 All-Ireland Final appearance.
In his own quiet way, he had one of the most extraordinary Kerry careers even in a county with the greatest football stories.
He successfully captained Kerry in 1969 when they beat Offaly in the All-Ireland. Culloty and Kerry’s 1970 All-Ireland winning captain, Donie O’Sullivan, were on the East Kerry team which ventured into the 1971 All-Ireland championship.In the Munster semi-final, first-time County champions John Mitchells of Waterford faced into the pick of a variety of Kerry clubs – an outrageous proposition surely. The scoreline (4-15 to 2-6) was hardly a shock given the disparity in playing resources. East Kerry’s Munster Final opponents, Muskerry, another divisional team from Cork, were a better match and were fresh from winning their only County Senior title ever. Muskerry would include more than fifteen clubs including potentially Macroom, the Gaeltacht area of Ballyvourney, and even a few boys of Kilmichael. East Kerry scraped past them by a point. The All-Ireland series was a little easier. Gracefield of Offaly were beaten in Tullamore by five points in the All-Ireland semi-final in a game that reflected the newly-minted inter-county rivalry of Kerry-Offaly – they met in the 1969 & ’72 All-Irelands plus the 1973 League Final. The All-Ireland Final saw another familiar Kerry opponent. Bryansford of Down elected to play against the strong November wind in Croke Park – a deficit of 2-6 to 0-1 after ten minutes tells you all you need to know about the success of that decision.
In the end they did well to keep a team pulling their fifteen from five clubs to an eleven-point margin. East Kerry included Culloty, Donie O’Sullivan, and Mick Gleeson from Kerry’s All-Ireland winning team of the previous year.
The goalkeeper was Éamonn Fitzgerald, Culloty’s immediate successor between the sticks for Kerry. A talented team – maybe too talented to be mixing it with regular club teams. There likes will hardly be seen again.