By John Harrington

Kerry will always be synonymous with Gaelic football, but the rising tide of hurling in the county deserves some recognition too.

The game has always had a stronghold in north Kerry where eight clubs have a long and proud tradition of hurling, and in recent years the blossoming of the game outside of this hinterland has also been significant.

It has come about thanks to a combination of some really hard work on the ground by club volunteers and an enlightened approach by Kerry GAA that has seen them invest in hurling Games Development Administrators and put in place a games programme that has given hurling the space it needs to grow.

In recent days the ambition of Kerry hurling has been writ large. At Annual Congress last week, a motion brought forward by Kerry GAA and the Munster Council to allow the Kingdom take part in the Munster SHC should they win the Joe McDonagh Cup was passed with 98.2% of delegates voting in favour of it.

Putting forward that motion was a statement of self-confidence by Kerry GAA in the upward trajectory of hurling in the county.

Another little sign that hasn’t gone unnoticed by the hurling fraternity in the county is the fact that Saturday’s Allianz Hurling League game against Offaly will be played in the home of Kerry GAA, Fitzgerald Stadium, rather than Austin Stack Park in Tralee which has traditionally hosted the county hurling team’s matches.

This isn’t just a recognition of the significance of the match – if Kerry with two wins from two beat an Offaly team with the same record thus far it’ll be a major result in terms of the promotion picture – but it also services an increased interest in the Kerry hurling team among the sporting public outside of North Kerry.

Dr. Crokes of Killarney won the Kerry Intermediate Championship in 2020 and have had the ambition to test themselves against the North Kerry Clubs in the senior championship ever since. The fact that their U-11s will play Kilmoyley in an exhibition match before the Kerry-Offaly game is another illustration of their commitment to hurling.

For Colm O’Brien, Kerry GAA’s Games Development Administrator for hurling clubs outside of North Kerry, a day like Saturday in Fitzgerald Stadium paints a good picture of how the hurling landscape is steadily changing in the county.

“The fact that the game is on in Killarney means children from East Kerry and Kenmare can come and see that Kerry hurlers are not just mythical creatures from the north of the county, they're living around them,” O’Brien told GAA.ie.

“We now have kids who can relate to the Kerry hurling team from non-traditional clubs because it's their club-mates that are playing.

“We have county hurlers now from the majority of our clubs outside of north kerry and even for kids to come down and see that, that there is a pathway for me here, it's not just I'm hurling up to U-11 and then sure hurling might disappear in my club, that's not the case.

“They can imagine themselves lining out for their club senior team and maybe the county some day.

“All of our clubs outside of North Kerry would now be represented on our development squads and many would be represented on the senior panel too, so that goes to show that hurling is bedding in.

“It's trying to move away from hurling being a novelty to hurling being the norm. Thankfully with the support of our clubs and schools all across the region who are absolutely delighted to receive hurling coaching our kids finding their place and knowing they can play hurling if they want to.”

For hurling to ever become ‘the norm’ in counties where football has traditionally held sway, then both codes have to be treated equally when it comes to formulating a games programme for underage players. To Kerry GAA’s credit, this is what they have done.

“It has become the norm at U-7s and U-9s that clubs play one week of hurling and one week of football in terms of their games programme which is really, really positive,” says O’Brien.

“You're not in a situation where you're saying to the kids that we're going to put the hurleys down now because we have three, four, or five weeks of football before we have a hurling blitz coming up.

“There's that structure and certainty there and once you have that I think it's very easy for volunteers to fall in behind and say, okay, this is where we're at. We need to go about our business, we know when our blitzes are coming up, we know when our games programme is coming up.

"Our games programme starts in April and week one of April will be hurling, week two will be football, week three will be hurling, and so on.

"That runs right through until September/October. So our U-7s and U-9s have the the same opportunity to play hurling as they do football and that to me is the gold standard of developing the game in a county that would be traditionally stronger in another code.

"It's all thanks to the support of our Games Manager, Donal Daly, and great collaboration between Coiste nan Óg, our coaching officer, myself and Giles O’Grady (North Kerry’s Hurling GDA), and the support of our football GDAs in the county.

O’Brien has been a Kerry hurling GDA for the last four years and is busy building on the great work done by his predecessor in the role, former Kerry hurler John ‘Tweek’ Griffin.

Since Limerick native O’Grady moved to Tralee he has seen the game grow steadily stronger in the seven clubs in his region – Dr. Crokes, Tralee Parnells, Firies, St. Pat’s East Kerry, Kenmare, Kilgarvan, and Rathmore.

The progress made by Tralee Parnells has been especially rapid since they were reconstituted as a club ten years ago. Last year they won the North Kerry U-21 Hurling Championship, the Division 1 Kerry Féile na nGael title, and the National Féile na nGael Division 3 Final.

Tellingly, another team from outside of North Kerry, Firies, won the Kerry Division 2 Féile title, which further underlines the progress being made by the ‘developing’ clubs.

“Tralee Parnells are a fantastic model in the sense that it's one hurling club in a football stronghold and therefore you have football kids coming in from all the different football clubs around the area there to play hurling," says O'Brien.

“They could be playing football in town leagues against each other on one weekend and then the following week they're lining out together with a Parnells jersey on their back. It's fantastic and is working extremely well because it’s being driven by great volunteers there.

“Firies are a great example of a club that started work at underage level and are now starting to move up through the age-grades.

“If there's a child in Firies who wants to play hurling now they can do so all the way from U-5 up to U-17 this year. They're fielding all teams in between on their own and going really, really well.

“We were at a stage where a really good, strong cohort of players from the club were going to secondary school and we were watching anxiously to see where they were going, would they scatter, stick together, or whatever it would be.

“Then inevitably enough the phone-call came from Castleisland Community College, we have a shot of hurlers here, is there any chance we could maybe look at starting a hurling team?

“Castleisland played in their first competition this year and that's the knock on effect. We can't just look inward at our clubs doing, we need to look at how can we spread the game beyond that. So we go in and support schools and it's been great to see Castleisland begin fielding teams.

“It's similar with St. Brendan's College in Killarney. They're very famous for their football, but hurling is going from strength to strength too.”

The game is getting stronger at grassroots level all the time and O’Brien believes the growth would be further accelerated by the reflected glow of a successful Kerry senior inter-county team.

They’re within touching distance of making a big breakthrough, having lost the last three Joe McDonagh Cup Finals.

If they can finally jump that hurdle this year and secure a place in the Munster Senior Hurling Championship as a reward, O’Brien believes the profile boost it would give hurling in the county would accelerate the development of the game.

“I’d be positive about how much hurling in Kerry can develop in the next number of years because the county board have always been unwavering in their support,” he says.

“That shows the ambition is there. Do we knock on every door of every football club in the county and say, ‘look, hurling is starting on Saturday?’ I don't really think that's a sustainable way to go ahead.

“But once the interest is there in a club or school the support is always forthcoming after that to really help it develop.

“I believe reaching a bigger audience is really the key to unlocking the full potential of Kerry hurling and that’s why the prospect of the Kerry senior hurlers playing in the Munster Championship is such an exciting one.

“A Joe McDonagh Cup win has to come first, but it would be great to fill Austin Stack Park with Kerry hurling fans and kids, or to have Cork or Limerick or Tipperary coming to down in Killarney and for it to be the norm.

“Even if it's not the Munster Championship, I know playing in Division 1 of the League is a big aim for Stephen Molumphy and his players and they're on track to achieving that at the minute.

“All these things help. We can have the best games programme in the world but as Ladies Football has proven in recent years, the slogan 'if you can't see it you can't be it' is a very true one.”

Every journey is made up of many milestones, and if the Kingdom can defeat Offaly in Fitzgerald Stadium on Saturday and take a big step towards promotion to Division 1 then they’ll surely open more eyes to the potential of Kerry hurling.