Kerry is seeing the biggest All-Ireland build-up in years with dozens of schemes for “Kingdomising” the towns and countryside in the team colours.
But Kerry and Donegal have so much in common it is also one of the friendliest build-ups in recent memory with little of the intense and sometimes bitter rivalry of a Kerry-Dublin or Cork-Kerry contest.
Kerry and Donegal could not be farther apart in terms of distance, but they share in many ways the same traditions from Gaeltacht areas, fishing traditions and long histories of emigration. As it happens they also have the same football colours and so that there is no confusion on Sunday, Donegal will wear gold and Kerry will tog out in green and gold.
Daniel O’Donnell
There is a Donegal-Kerry Association that boasts pictures of Daniel O’Donnell and Margo’s visit to Killarney this summer.
Someone planted a Donegal flag at the top of Carrauntoohil, Ireland’s highest mountain, this week.
Donegal-Kerry households are numerous and go to the heart of Kerry life, from Siamsa Tíre’s Des Hurley and his wife, Gemma Faulkner Hurley, who is originally from Donegal, to the boating and marketing company for Fungi the Dingle dolphin – owned by Dingle man Jimmy Flannery and his Donegal-born wife Bridget (nee Farren) from Green Castle.
The Flannerys are one of a large number of Donegal-Kerry families in Dingle. “We’re not alone. There are many families in Dingle who have Donegal connections,” Bridget said.
Then there is the Jim McGuinness factor: IT Tralee, Kerry’s third-level college, is proud to claim the Donegal manager as a past student and his name loomed large on the college’s website yesterday.
He cut his teeth in IT Tralee where he studied health and leisure sciences and played in the winning Tralee IT Sigerson Cup team in the late 1990s. Only this week he spoke of his love of Kerry. He trained at the Kerins O’Rahilly club, home club of David Moran, Cormac Coffey and Barry John Keane.
Rousing song
Kerry’s answer to Daniel O’Donnell,
X Factor
star Ben Quinlan (19), a first cousin of Kerry player Eoin Brosnan, has composed and recorded a rousing song,
A Tribute to Kerry
, to cheer the team on in Croke Park next Sunday.
The Killarney teen, who will appear on X Factor again next Saturday night, features with Cheryl Cole in a YouTube video that has registered 386,225 views and is still rising. "I'm up in Croke Park for every game I can get to," Ben said. "I am a big Kerry fan. Eoin Brosnan is my godfather."
Yesterday, the winners of the best-dressed lambs at the St Patrick’s parade in Killorglin were painted in the Kerry colours.
Owner Bridget Richardson, Killorglin, used sheep paint to transform Bressie (2) and Luke (9 months). The lambs are part of a big family of pets cared for by Bridget and her daughters, Kerry (13) and Holly (7).