a day ago
Kilcummin kids looking to put Kerry village on the map
Kilcummin post office opens at 9am on a Friday, same as every other day of the working week.
Such were the masses gathered outside from 7am on this particular Friday, you'd swear it was the last day for getting off the Christmas cards. There's no other comparison to do justice to the extent of local activity.
Kilcummin post office was the designated meeting point.
Four buses pulled in and pulled out at 7.30am on the dot. One bus for the players, two more for families, and a fourth for the last lot of supporters.
In front of them was an almost six-hour journey to Letterkenny.
The Donegal town is their base for the weekend, with a further one-hour spin onto their weekend playing base that is the Derry GAA centre of excellence at Owenbeg.
Everything has been planned down to the last minute detail.
Kilcummin team captain Darragh Keane preparing for John West GAA Féile Peile na nÓg
There was a pitstop in Galway to break up the six-hour journey, a kickabout in the Donegal centre of excellence in Convoy to loosen out at the end of the six-hour journey, and a three-course meal at €28 per-person to refill the tank at the end of a long, long day.
Kilcummin are on the road and a long way from home because of this weekend's Féile Peile na nÓg finals.
For the third time in the club's history, Kilcummin are the Kerry flag bearers and Division 1 representatives. The two other occasions were 1992 and 2007.
A young Mike McCarthy was the star of the '92 class, the 07' expedition marking the first goalkeeping chapter of current Kerry back-up Shane Murphy.
Murphy's county teammate David Clifford spun out to Kilcummin the day after taking Cavan for 3-7 to take a session with the U15 boys.
The county Féile winners recently showed up at a session of the club nursery to help out with the generation behind them. Heroes beget heroes beget heroes.
Kilcummin Féile mentors Dinny O'Connor, Edward O'Sullivan, Tom Keane, Paul O'Donoghue and Sean Lynch.
'My own fella is involved and it is great to see the lads he would have grown up with, you saw them all starting off in the nursery at six years of age when they were first learning to kick a ball, to now going off to represent Kerry at national Féile,' says Tom Keane, one of the five mentors overseeing the team.
'It is fitting tribute to the lads for their input locally that they are getting the benefit of representing Kerry at national Féile in Division 1.'
Belief was sown last September when the team won the Munster U14 Super 10s competition. County Féile success followed seven months later.
As can be taken from the four packed buses that pulled out from the post office yesterday morning, the whole community is on board and behind this group.
'The excitement it has created amongst the community is phenomenal, and it is lovely to see the community working together in such large numbers.
'There's a massive focus within the club on the underage structure. We are a small little village outside of Killarney which is growing year-on-year for the last number of years.
"We want to put Kilcummin on the map, we want to compete with the rest. We want to compete with the bigger clubs. And it is like anything, we need to start somewhere. Obviously you start at juvenile level and that is what we have done.'
Conall McCarthy, Dean Moynihan, Daniel O'Sullivan, Eamon O'Donoghue, Darragh Keane and Aidan Huggard.
In recent years, the club completed the €1m development of a new training field, walking track, dressing-rooms, and state-of-the-art gym.
'Everything is looking up,' continued Keane, who is a past treasurer of Kerry county board.
The semi-final appearance of their maiden 1992 voyagers represents the outstanding Féile run by the club. Clonduff of Down, who coincidentally enough are in their group this weekend, tripped them up at the penultimate hurdle before going on to claim outright success.
In keeping with the meticulous planning of the weekend, there's a room booked in Adare's Woodlands Hotel early on Sunday evening so the players can take in on the return leg home Kerry's All-Ireland quarter-final against Armagh.
Wouldn't they love to do so after an extended Féile run, wouldn't they love to do so after putting Kilcummin on the map.
