BARRY DARDIS WAS a name that was high up the Twitter trend charts on Sunday.
In the final stages of the Meath SFC final between Ratoath and Summerhill, he converted a free off the ground that received viral treatment online. It was a tricky angle for a right-footed kicker, but he arrowed the ball between the posts with ease. A final tally of five points was his contribution to Summerhill’s day of days.
He nailed the effort in the final moments of extra-time, as Summerhill banished the ghosts of four county final defeats since 2017 to emerge as champions. Dethroning the holders Ratoath was an added sweetener as they ended a 10-year wait for the top prize in Meath.
Amid the celebrations that have taken over in the last few days, Dardis has been combing through his socials to see the impact of his strike.
“Every couple of hours, when I click on Twitter or Facebook, I see someone else sharing the video,” he tells The 42.
“I enjoy taking frees from that side. There was a small bit of wind coming across, and I just caught it sweetly and I think that was one of the last plays of the game because the pressure was off. The cameras caught it lovely.”
The root of Dardis’s skills isn’t hard to trace. His Kerry connections explain a lot of his talent. He’s the son of the famous Kerry Ladies player Eileen Lawlor, and the nephew of Margaret Lawlor. The sisters played in Kerry’s All-Ireland nine-in-a-row team from 1982 to 1990, while Margaret won her first in 1976. Eileen captained Kerry to Brendan Martin glory in 1993 which was the last time the Kingdom triumphed at that grade.
The siblings also have 10 All-Stars between them.
“I think everyone knows that Kerry live and breathe GAA, and it’s no different with Mam and my aunt as well,” says Dardis. “They just love football; they had great success in their own careers. I suppose from my own mother’s point of view, she’s delighted to see success in my career as well. Mam has always been one of my number one supporters.
“We could be playing a league game anywhere any time of the year and she’ll be there. It’s a ritual now with herself and a couple of friends. They just go to every game and it’s more that the GAA is about the social aspect as well. People love going to matches and meeting people.
The icing on the cake from Barry Dardis, what’s score. Well done @SummerhillGFC @MeathGAA Great county final. pic.twitter.com/T5FG5BjqOH
— Gary Alder (@gartommat) October 8, 2023
“And now that we’re winning, it’s nicer going to games. She got a great kick out of the win, and it’s great to see the joy on her face.”
Dardis has always been aware of his mother’s successes in sport. The number of All-Ireland medals and All-Star awards was in his head from an early age, but it’s only in more recent times that the magnitude of their achievements has been reinforced for him.
The resurgence of the current Kerry Ladies team, upon reaching the last two All-Ireland finals, has brought about overdue recognition. The growth of Ladies Football on a wider scale has also helped put a spotlight on achievements that had been lost in time.
Now he really knows who and what she was in Gaelic Football.
“Mam is very low-key. She wouldn’t really say a huge amount about it. I always knew that Mam won 10 All-Irelands and five All-Stars, but because she never mentioned it, I didn’t really pay much attention to it.
“But it’s only in the last five or six years, when Ladies Football started really coming to prominence, that Mam was getting the recognition. In the last five or six years, she’s had more recognition than she’s ever gotten before.
“I suppose Kerry weren’t challenging for too many All-Ireland titles, so it wasn’t being brought up. But now there’s been articles and a few interviews. When you see Meath winning All-Irelands, you start to think about how Mam has that many of them, and it’s just water off a duck’s back to her. She doesn’t like to bring it up too often, or bring attention to herself.
“There’s been a lot more dos like that in the last number of years, and functions where they’ve met up as a team which they hadn’t done in a while. Any of them that she has done to, she’s gotten a huge kick out of it. It’s just the realisation of what they actually did achieve. Even when Mam does speak about the All-Irelands, the first couple that she played in weren’t at Croke Park, and it’s amazing to think of a Ladies All-Ireland final not being at Croke Park.”
The impression in Meath over the past few years was that Ratoath had a hex on Summerhill. The pair met in last year’s county final, and once again in 2019, with Ratoath taking the scalp on both occasions.
So, when Summerhill reconvened at the start of this season to make another charge at the title, they knew that they would have to face down Ratoath again at some point. Taking them down with a final surge in extra-time was the ultimate stamp of their superiority.
The Leinster championship now awaits, and an opening round against Offaly champions Tullamore in two weeks.
“We set out our goals that we wanted to get back to a final and we knew we were going to play Ratoath at some stage. So, we really had our eyes on them all year and it was such a relief to beat them when they knocked us out the last couple of years.
“People were like, ‘Ratoath have one over ye.’ Ratoath were the one team that could give us bother so it was nice to get that off our back.
“Everyone was just really focused. It was like, ‘We’re doing it this year, come hell or high water. We just needed to win it. We weren’t going to get many more chances at it. I think everyone just knuckled down from the beginning of the year.
“It’s 20 years since a Meath team won a Leinster club championship, and Summerhill were blessed that we won it back in the 80s when the likes of Mick Lyons and Padraic Lyons were winning championships with Summerhill. It would be unbelievable to get there ourselves and win a Leinster. That’s the aim. Everyone wants a good crack at Leinster and we want to give it our best shot.
“We’ve won the county championship but that’s not the attitude we’re going in with. We want to get to Croke Park and represent the club there.”
The42 is on Instagram! Tap the button below on your phone to follow us!
