Motoring Adventures

Welcome to The home of Gaelic football

For any visitor to Ireland, taking in a traditional Gaelic football match is a ‘must’. And you don’t have to wait for an All-Ireland final in Croke Park (Dublin) to experience the frenetic pace and wild excitement of the nation’s favourite game, writes Adam Moynihan.

Nowhere in the world is more Gaelic-footballcrazy than Killarney, a town which boasts no fewer than three GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association) clubs within the parish itself and many more in the wider East Kerry area. COVID restrictions allowing, clubs host almostnightly training sessions and matches across all age groups, from juvenile up to adult, so sampling some of the action is often as easy as turning up. As much entertainment can be gained from an Under 12 local derby as you would get at Páirc Uí Chaoimh or Fitzgerald Stadium on Munster Final day.

WHAT IS GAELIC FOOTBALL?

This centuries old game is physical and fastpaced and has been described as a mix between soccer, rugby and basketball, although it can be more accurately compared to Australian Rules football. Under the rules of the GAA, players cannot be paid for their services, and transferring from one team to another is frowned upon. This breeds a huge amount of loyalty within counties, towns and villages as families remain devoted to the same team from generation to generation. Depending on where their parents’ allegiances lie, the footballers of Killarney line out for either Dr Crokes, Killarney Legion or Spa. Legion and Crokes both participate in the Kerry Senior Football Championship, the highest level of football in the county, while Spa compete in the intermediate competition.

KERRY SENIOR FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

The Kerry SFC (aka the County Championship), is a 16-team, winner-takes-all competition featuring the best football teams in the county. In addition to the eight top-level ‘senior’ clubs, there are eight ‘divisional’ sides made up of the cream of the crop from the remaining smaller clubs in that particular division (e.g. South Kerry, West Kerry and Mid Kerry). For instance, Spa’s top players also represent East Kerry, an amalgamation comprised of fellow non-senior clubs Fossa, Glenflesk, Kilcummin, Listry, Firies, Rathmore and Gneeveguilla. Led by star player David Clifford, East Kerry have claimed the last two Kerry Senior Football Championships, bringing to an end the period of dominance enjoyed by their neighbours, Dr Crokes, during the previous decade. The Kerry SFC is normally staged over a sixor-seven-week period in late autumn but other competitions generally run throughout the calendar year, from January right up until

STAR PLAYER: David Clifford (Fossa) is Kerry's leading light. He and his teammates will be hoping to bring the Sam Maguire trophy back to The Kingdom in 2021. Pic: Diarmuid Greene/Sportsfile.

LOCAL LAD: Killarney Legion star James O'Donoghue in action for Kerry against Galway. Pic: Diarmuid Greene/Sportsfile.

DR CROKES

Email: secretary.drcrokes.kerry@gaa.ie Phone: 087 6836415 Location: Lewis Road (across from the Fitzgerald Stadium) GPS Co-ordinates: 52.0669333,-9.5059822

KILLARNEY LEGION

Email: secretary.legion.kerry@gaa.ie Phone: 087 7766551 Location: Derreen (just off the Killarney bypass) GPS Co-ordinates: 52.0671792,-9.521291

SPA

Email: secretary.spa.kerry@gaa.ie Phone: 087 6332773 Location: Tullig (a couple of miles from the town centre). GPS Co-ordinates: 52.0697194,-9.4700562

LEGEND: Then Kerry captain Colm Cooper (Dr Crokes) leads his side out for the Munster football versus Cork in the Fitzgerald Stadium in 2011. Pic: Eamonn Keogh.

December. Many important games take place over the summer months. However, this has naturally been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic in recent times. The 2020 season, for instance, was altered significantly and run off over a much shorter timeframe, largely behind closed doors or with limited spectators in attendance. Hopefully such compromises will be a thing of the past before too long.

KERRY TEAM

The best club players in the county are chosen to represent the Kerry senior football team on the highest stage: the National League and the prestigious All-Ireland Senior Football Championship, which (in non-COVID times) runs from May to August. Matches at this level are televised and draw large attendances but the players are not paid for their efforts. Despite being nationally-recognised superstars, they work day jobs as teachers, police officers (gardaí), bank officials and company reps. Some juggle their college studies with life as a highprofile intercounty footballer. Kerry are the most successful team in the history of Gaelic football with 37 All-Irelands to their name and, as such, are as synonymous with Gaelic football as Brazil are with soccer and New Zealand are with rugby. Dublin, whose population is nine times that of Kerry, are in second place with 30 titles. Killarney and the neighbouring parishes have produced some of the finest players to ever wear the famous green and gold, including the likes of Dick Fitzgerald, Johnny Culloty, Séamus Moynihan, and Colm ‘The Gooch’ Cooper.

GROUNDS

The Kingdom, as the county team are affectionately known, play most of their home games in Killarney’s Fitzgerald Stadium. This 38,000-capacity venue is just a short walk from the town centre and is renowned for its spectacular backdrop, which includes the mountains and lakes of Killarney. Even when they play away from home the atmosphere in town is electric as fans pack the local bars to support their favourite team.

WHERE TO SEE A GAME

Check out the locations of the Killarney GAA club grounds (in the green box) and contact individual clubs for details of games. You can also find the latest updates, fixtures, interviews and match reports in the sports section of Killarney’s favourite weekly publication, the Killarney Advertiser.

Motoring adventures over a century ago WITH SEAN MORIARTY

August 13 this year marks the 120th anniversary of the first recorded passage of the Gap of Dunloe in a motor car.

A year earlier two adventuring motorists successfully crossed Ballaghbeama Gap by car. The Killarney Advertiser’s resident motoring expert and journalist Sean Moriarty takes a trip back in time to revisit two of the greatest automotive adventures ever witnessed in Ireland. Both mountain passes remain a challenge for the modern day motorist, but the current paved roads are far removed from the dirt tracks these intrepid drivers faced 120 years ago. Modern automotive technology makes driving these passes so much easier - but at the turn of the last century cars were still considered nothing more than a horseless carriage. The Irish Automobile Club (IAC), now the Royal Irish Automobile Club, was founded in the Metropole Hotel in Dublin on January 22 1901, the same day Queen Victoria died.

Following a successful motor parade to the Royal Dublin Society’s showground in April, the new club’s second event was an ambitious two-week tour of Ireland. The event was the brainchild of two of the club’s founders, William Goff and Richard J ‘Arjay’ Mecredy. The latter was a motoring journalist and founder of the Motor News, a periodical that had its first registered office in Tralee – but that is another story. At the time the IAC was operating under the auspices of the Automobile Club of Great Britain and Ireland (ACGBI) and the British club ran a one thousand mile tour of Britain in 1900. Between one thing and another the ACGBI did not have the appetite to run a second event and Goff and Mecredy pushed for the opportunity to be given to Ireland. Such was the ambition of Mecredy, a former champion cyclist, to run an Irish Tour that it was said that it would have gone ahead with or without London’s approval, so permission was given to save face. On Thursday August 8, 1901, 16 cars left the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin in an attempt to circumnavigate Ireland by visiting some the country’s most remote locations including West Cork, South Kerry, Connemara and Enniskillen before returning to Dublin some 15 days later. The pioneering motorists were joined by others along the way, while more withdrew due to mechanical issues. In all, a total of 28 different cars took part in various stages of the tour – and only two finished! Among the entrants was the famous English racing driver Charles Jarrott, who was a friend of Mecredy through cycling. Some years earlier, in 1897, Mecredy stayed with the English man during the London Cycling Show and it was Jarrott who introduced the Galway native to the joys of motoring, an experience which set the tone for the rest of his life. Also on the entry list was Dublin business man, and another champion cyclist, Harvey du Cros Jr, who worked for his family’s huge automotive empire. Amongst many other things, his father Harvey Sr was financially involved in the Dunlop and the Goodyear tyre companies. They were the importers of Panhard et Levassor cars into Britain and Ireland and later became the Mercedes agents for the two countries. Jarrott’s CV was all the more impressive. He raced professionally from 1900 to 1904, winning the 1902 Circuit des Ardennes in Belgium and competed in the 1903 Gordon Bennett Cup, the first official motor race to take place in Ireland. Jarrott also looked after the London motoring affairs of the du Cros family by acting as their sales agent. Just a few weeks prior to his Irish Motor Tour adventure Jarrott finished 10th in the 1901 Paris–Berlin Trial, driving a Panhard et Levassor, in a deal set up by the du Cros family through business connections with the French company. He arrived to Dublin directly from France. A third gentleman by the name of Roger Fuller was to play a significant role in the story when the tour arrived in Kerry a few days later. Fuller was a senior official in the ACGBI and along with Jarrott was one of only two British drivers who took part in the Irish Tour. The British club sanctioned the event as a result of Goff and Mecredy’s pressure, but it did not support it and did not encourage its members to enter. Both Jarrott and du Cros drove Panhard et Levassor racing cars. Jarrott’s car was powered by a seven-horsepower engine but Du Cros’ version, showing its racing pedigree, was producing a staggering 16hp. Fuller was at the wheel of a 4.5hp De Dion Voiturette. There were many more significant Irish motor industry heroes involved too, most notably Dr John Boyd Dunlop, founder of the eponymous tyre company, and Dr John Colohan, the first Irish person to drive a car sometime in the mid-1890s while on holiday on the continent. In November of 1896 he imported one of the first petrolengine cars into Ireland – a Mercedes. Colohan, another IAC founder, and Mecredy achieved their notable driving achievement when they became the first motorists to drive through Beallaghbeama Gap one year before the Motor Tour of Ireland. It was probably the first time locals in this remote part of South Kerry had ever seen a motor car of any description. The Shannon Development Company, in 1900, was the first organisation to promote a motor tour in Ireland. The company had built a hotel in Killaloe and organised a motor trip from Dublin to the Clare town, via Nenagh in County Tipperary. The Shannon Development Company is a direct forerunner to Irish Tourist Board (Failte Ireland) and now the government agency charged with promoting tourism in Ireland. Several participants extended that 1900 tour of their own accord, including Colohan and Mecredy, who ventured as far as Killarney and stayed at the Lake Hotel. It was during this trip that they drove their two 6hp Daimler cars through Ballaghbeama Gap. “This pioneering run into this area was almost certainly the first time automobiles travelled through this most-scenic part of Ireland and represented a considerable achievement for the time,” says Irish motoring historian Bob Montgomery in ‘The Father of Irish Motoring’, his biographical account of Mecredy’s automotive achievements. It will come as no surprise to learn that Mecredy was one the first people to publish a road map of Ireland specifically for the motorist, a map that described important details like road conditions and pavement structure. Returning to the Motor Tour of Ireland of 1901, and after an overnight halt in Waterford, the drivers made their way towards the South West. The second night was spent in Cork city before they journeyed westward to Kerry via West Cork. They arrived in Killarney via Bantry, Glengarriff, Parknasilla and Moll’s Gap. This is the first documented evidence of racing cars (certainly professional racing drivers) travelling the famous Moll’s Gap road. In his autobiography; ‘Ten Years of Motors and Motor Racing,’ published in 1906, Jarrott