Dingle take centre stage in their own right

KILLINAN END

The spirit of Daingean Uí Chúis displayed many aspects in Croke Park. Extraordinary resilience has been the standard for the club all year with the semi-final comeback against Ballyboden St. Enda’s just the latest act of escapology. Even their County Final win over Austin Stacks necessitated two goals from Paul Geaney to turn a game where the Tralee club had led for fifty minutes. It is a defiance that has a long tradition in a club and in an area that is different. The lán-Gaeilge celebrations for the second successive weekend in Croke Park was that of a proud and rich heritage. A culture unbowed and unconquered.

It was not the first time that the red & white of Dingle carried the day in Croke Park. In 1939 Kerry qualified for the All-Ireland Final against Meath. This created a Green & Gold dilemma. Kerry’s legendary geansaí could not be worn as the Royal County also had these colours albeit with a different configuration. The solution was straightforward as far as the County Board was concerned – Kerry would don the blue of Munster in the final. This was a solution which Kerry has reached for on many occasions since. In five All-Ireland finals and two semi-finals between 1969-86 the Kingdom wore blue. But this novel solution was rejected by Dingle. This Kerry team would wear the jersey of the County champions.

If this did not happen Dingle’s champion players would be ‘unavailable’ said a letter from the club secretary to the County Board. An odd footnote to the story of the Dingle jerseys is that the set subsequently worn in the final was originally intended for Cork. The story goes that Dingle man Jimmy McKenna had served his time in a drapery shop in Cork in the 1930s. The Cork County Board got their jerseys from this drapery, but after a falling out the set of jerseys was abandoned and Jimmy was allowed take them home to Dingle with him when he finished serving his time.

Those Cork jerseys became the Dingle jerseys that were worn when the club won a first county title in 1938 and in Kerry’s All-Ireland final win a year later. The story was told by Fergus O’Flaherty who runs a very well-known pub in Dingle where music is flying constantly, as you might imagine if you saw supporters of Daingean i Chúis agus An Ghaeltacht with language and music seeping from their veins in recent days.

Down the road from Flaherty’s is the well-known pub of Paddy Bawn Brosnan who, three decades after his death, still has serious name-recognition in Gaelic Football circles. He too played a part in that 1939 Kerry team which won the county’s thirteenth All-Ireland. The captain that day was Dingle’s Tom ‘Gega’ O’Connor in the absence of an ill Seán Brosnan who led the team in the parade but did not play. Kerry has always done nicknames well, from basic Jacko and Micko, to the more inspired ‘Bomber’ and ‘Gooch’. However, even a superficial trawl through nostalgia unearths ‘Purty’ and ‘Roundy’ Landers, and ‘Gawksie’ O’Gorman among many others. The modern era has much to live up to in this regard.

Kerry’s triumph was the start of a three-in-a-row. A year later the captain was Austin Stacks’ man Dan Spring, father of Dick Spring who played rugby for Ireland and three League games for Kerry in 1975. In 1941 another Dingle man, Bill Dillon, captained Kerry. Dillon was unusual in that he did not debut for Kerry until he was 32. His progress was spectacular as he was an ever present in winning four All-Irelands and five Munster championships.

Dingle’s golden era was 1937-48 when the club played in nine County Finals winning six of them. Gega O’Connor had played on school teams with Bill Casey of Lispole - uncle of Brian Mullins - and they shared a Kerry career too. In those days Dingle picked from An Ghaeltacht and surrounding villages such as Lispole, home of Bill Casey.

Gega O’Connor was an athlete - an accomplished boxer and a prodigious Gaelic Footballer. Having been a Minor in 1936 he made his Senior championship debut on the most auspicious stage of all just a year later – the All-Ireland Senior Final replay of 1937 against Cavan. In 1946 Gega’s was one of two late goals which snatched the Sam Maguire from the clutches of 1943/44 champions Roscommon. The Kingdom won the replay for their only All-Ireland title between 1941 and 1953. On a day when Gega O’Connor won a fifth All-Ireland, Paddy Kennedy from just out the road in Annascaul was winning captain. A short few weeks in early 1979 saw the deaths of Seán Brosnan, Paddy Kennedy, and Tom Dillon.

Gega O’Connor’s participation in the Kerry-Cavan Polo Grounds All-Ireland Final foreshadowed his future life in the Big Apple where he lived until his death half a century later. How he would have enjoyed his Grand-Nephew Mikey Geaney scoring the winning point in the All-Ireland Final on another day the Dingle red & white flew proudly in Croke Park.