If you’re suffering from the January blues this week, get yourself down to west Kerry as quick as you can. You’re back at work and the kids are back in school and you’re moaning and groaning because Christmas is over. Stop. You’re doing it wrong. The decorations are still up where we come from.
Our club An Ghaeltacht are heading to Croke Park on Sunday for the All-Ireland intermediate final. The following week, it will be Dingle’s turn, our best friends and sworn enemies who have made it to the senior final. Two clubs five miles apart, both in All-Ireland finals a week after each other. That can’t have happened too many times before.
The tit-for-tat messing between the two clubs has been on the go forever. Every club has a few ultras about the place, the sort of lads you can’t really defend in polite society. Back in September, when we were on our way to the Kerry final against Fossa, a few of ours decided to have a bit of fun with a few of theirs.
That was how one of the biggest Dingle supporters around woke up one morning with a Gaeltacht flag planted in his garden for all to see. And a few others started appearing around the place too, including in front of Páirc an Ághsaigh, Dingle’s home ground.
Now, obviously there’d have to be retaliation. That sort of carry-on couldn’t be let go. Nobody knew where or how or what form it would take. In fairness to the Dingle lads, they put a bit of work into it – they somehow managed to get a flag up high on our goalposts in Gallarus in the dead of night. We had to respect the effort. Not that you’d ever say it out loud.
In west Kerry, you could say we basically have four strands to our iden
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