THERE IS NO more storied a rivalry in Gaelic football, than that of Kerry and Dublin. From the very first meeting, it is one that has spawned controversy, conflicting supporter cultures, playing styles and even the sad death of a supporter.
Their very first recognised meeting between county representatives was the 1892 All-Ireland football final. It topped the bill of a double-header, the opener being an incredibly contentious All-Ireland hurling final.
As was custom of the day, the final had been postponed until 26 March, 1893 at Clonturk Park, adjacent to the present-day Tolka Park in Drumcondra.
It attracted a reported crowd of 5,000 and was played as a 17-a-side match. The scoreline finished Dublin – represented by Young Irelanders – winners over Kerry’s finest, Laune Rangers, on a 1-4 to 0-3 scoreline.
This left Dublin as the first ‘county’ to defend an All-Ireland football title, having beaten Cork’s Clondrohid in the 1891 final, played on 28 February, 1892.
The referee for the 1892 decider was Dan Fraher of Waterford, who endured the whole gamut of human emotion; having his authority challenged, dealing with a death, refereeing both hurling and football finals and having to take part in an impromptu Central Council meeting.
Fraher was a fascinating character in his own right, being the proprietor of his own drapery shop on a corner of Grattan Square in Dungarvan, ‘The Gaelic Outfitting Store’ where he was togging teams and players out, back in the day. Later, he would secure the land that forms the present day Fraher Field.
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Fraher Field, Dungarvan. David Ribeiro / INPHO
David Ribeiro / INPHO / INPHO
The era was one of patchy championships. Dublin came through whatever comprised the Leinster championship by beating Kildare 3-5 to 0-1 on 12 March, while Louth did not actually contest the final, handing Dublin a bye.
There were no entrants from Ulster and Roscommon were the only Connacht team so they had safe passage to the All-Ireland semi-final, where they were beaten 1-9 to 1-1 by Dublin on 19 March.
In Munster, Kerry beat the previous year’s finalists Cork on 30 October, 1892 3-6 to 0-5, and Waterford in the final on 4 December 1-6 to 0-3 in Fermoy.
And so to the final. And not for the first time when it came to Gaelic Games, details on the Dublin side were patchy enough. The upcoming game was mentioned in dispatches if not exactly heavily previewed in The Freeman’s Journal and The Evening Herald.
Afterwards, the result gained no more than an inch in The Freeman’s Journal under a Gaelic Athletic Association crosshead, mentioned in a throwaway fashion along with a cliffhanger reference that: ‘The handicapper reported the suspicious running of an athlete at a sports meet last year.’
Safe to say that Kerry, the vanquished, had more coverage. The Cork Examiner reporter felt that the days of Munster sides traipsing up to the capital to play games were numbered.
‘Clonturk has been a favourite place of meeting, but after today’s experience the adjective will be no longer applicable. The area might suit the metropolitans very well, but it is extremely improbable that a provincial team, at any rate a Munster one, will ever consent to come to Dublin to wield a camán or to kick a ball in a championship contest.’
The present day Clonturk Park, opposite Tolka Park, home of Shelbourne FC.
The day was a double-header, with the 1892 hurling final on the undercard. And in many ways this was the more interesting contest of the day.
In the last few minutes, Fraher awarded a goal for Cork (represented by the Redmonds club) and opponents Dublin (an amalgamation of the Faughs and Davitts clubs) objected.
A heated argument followed, and the Dubs threatened to walk off the pitch. Flustered by it all, Fraher reversed his decision in appeasement to the Dubs. But by then, a few of their players had left the field to make their way to work.
Fraher was left with no choice but to abandon the game and, following an ‘investigation’ by Central Council on the spot, Cork were awarded the title, a shield commissioned by the Irish Republican Brotherhood.
Those who sat on the Central Council meeting included Frank Dineen, then secretary of the GAA and later, the fourth president, along with Fraher among others.
Our man on duty for De Paper had praised the Dublin crowd for their ‘decency and propriety’ while chiding the players who ‘used language the reverse of parliamentary to the referee.’ He had his blade lowered for their conduct in the football final too, noting that while they did not attempt violence.
But they hooted and groaned the Kerrymen in the midst of play in a manner that was not alone discreditable to those guilty of it but calculated to take the spirit and heart out of the Killorglin men in their play which it did most effectively.’
We suspect that The Cork Examiner’s correspondent might have been a prolific ‘stringer’, as The Kerry Sentinel expresses similar thoughts, noting ‘The indelible disgrace of the Dublin crowd…that they acted towards the Kerrymen, and towards both southern teams for that matter, in a scandalous and utterly un-Irish fashion.’
It revisits the ‘hooting and groaning’ comment, and how it sapped the spirit of the men from the Kingdom. One wonders what the same correspondent might make of Hill 16 nowadays.
Laune Rangers, fielding in blue jumpers and white togs, were captained by JP O’Sullivan, a noted track and field athlete who won the Irish Athletics All-Round Championship title in 1891 and was known as ‘The Champ.’ O’Sullivan would later become a trainer or subsequent Kerry teams.
Kerry and Dublin has been an enduring rivalry. Billy Stickland / INPHO
Billy Stickland / INPHO / INPHO
He opened the scoring and added another. By half-time, the score was 0-3 apiece. Mention of the Dublin players was scarce. What we can gather is that they wore a white kit and John ‘Jack’ Kennedy captained them. J. Geraghty scored a point, but the goalscorer for Dublin was unnamed. The goal itself was worth five points in a rule brought in for that year’s championship.
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Not the first D. Clifford to feature in a Kerry-Dublin battle. Oisin Keniry / INPHO
Oisin Keniry / INPHO / INPHO
Next up in the list of ‘nothing changes, ever’ examples is how reports suggest that the Kerry side ‘made a splendid display of what long kicking is,’ but rues that ‘individual play counts for naught against a well-disciplined corps of men who are used to cooperative work in the art of football kicking and passing. That was where the Dubliners shone today.’
The day was shrouded in a particular tragedy. A young man, John Nevin who was a member of the Faughs-Davitts club and a native of Nenagh, Tipperary, suffered a fatal collapse during the hurling match.
The game was halted as he was brought to the Mater Hospital and pronounced deceased on arrival. This incident was more widely reported on than the games themselves, being noted in the staunchly Unionist title, The Belfast Newsletter.
The remarkable thing you encounter when researching this period is just how fragile the standing of the GAA was at the time. Just one year later, only 118 clubs survived in the entire country. Kerry had just ten. The collapse of the agricultural industry in 1890 led to mass emigration and in the final years of that decade, 716,000 – 15% of the country’s population – left. The vast majority of them were young men, who would have been playing and administrating.
By 1896, Kerry county board refused to affiliate with the GAA after their arrangement to host the Munster final in Tralee was reneged upon.
Within a year, the county board had folded and, effectively, GAA activity in Kerry collapsed. But one final note. The name of the full-forward in the 1892 Kerry All-Ireland final team? One D. Clifford.
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Contrasting styles, controversy and tragedy: The very first meeting of Dublin and Kerry
THERE IS NO more storied a rivalry in Gaelic football, than that of Kerry and Dublin. From the very first meeting, it is one that has spawned controversy, conflicting supporter cultures, playing styles and even the sad death of a supporter.
Their very first recognised meeting between county representatives was the 1892 All-Ireland football final. It topped the bill of a double-header, the opener being an incredibly contentious All-Ireland hurling final.
As was custom of the day, the final had been postponed until 26 March, 1893 at Clonturk Park, adjacent to the present-day Tolka Park in Drumcondra.
It attracted a reported crowd of 5,000 and was played as a 17-a-side match. The scoreline finished Dublin – represented by Young Irelanders – winners over Kerry’s finest, Laune Rangers, on a 1-4 to 0-3 scoreline.
This left Dublin as the first ‘county’ to defend an All-Ireland football title, having beaten Cork’s Clondrohid in the 1891 final, played on 28 February, 1892.
The referee for the 1892 decider was Dan Fraher of Waterford, who endured the whole gamut of human emotion; having his authority challenged, dealing with a death, refereeing both hurling and football finals and having to take part in an impromptu Central Council meeting.
Fraher was a fascinating character in his own right, being the proprietor of his own drapery shop on a corner of Grattan Square in Dungarvan, ‘The Gaelic Outfitting Store’ where he was togging teams and players out, back in the day. Later, he would secure the land that forms the present day Fraher Field.
The era was one of patchy championships. Dublin came through whatever comprised the Leinster championship by beating Kildare 3-5 to 0-1 on 12 March, while Louth did not actually contest the final, handing Dublin a bye.
There were no entrants from Ulster and Roscommon were the only Connacht team so they had safe passage to the All-Ireland semi-final, where they were beaten 1-9 to 1-1 by Dublin on 19 March.
In Munster, Kerry beat the previous year’s finalists Cork on 30 October, 1892 3-6 to 0-5, and Waterford in the final on 4 December 1-6 to 0-3 in Fermoy.
And so to the final. And not for the first time when it came to Gaelic Games, details on the Dublin side were patchy enough. The upcoming game was mentioned in dispatches if not exactly heavily previewed in The Freeman’s Journal and The Evening Herald.
Afterwards, the result gained no more than an inch in The Freeman’s Journal under a Gaelic Athletic Association crosshead, mentioned in a throwaway fashion along with a cliffhanger reference that: ‘The handicapper reported the suspicious running of an athlete at a sports meet last year.’
Safe to say that Kerry, the vanquished, had more coverage. The Cork Examiner reporter felt that the days of Munster sides traipsing up to the capital to play games were numbered.
‘Clonturk has been a favourite place of meeting, but after today’s experience the adjective will be no longer applicable. The area might suit the metropolitans very well, but it is extremely improbable that a provincial team, at any rate a Munster one, will ever consent to come to Dublin to wield a camán or to kick a ball in a championship contest.’
The day was a double-header, with the 1892 hurling final on the undercard. And in many ways this was the more interesting contest of the day.
In the last few minutes, Fraher awarded a goal for Cork (represented by the Redmonds club) and opponents Dublin (an amalgamation of the Faughs and Davitts clubs) objected.
A heated argument followed, and the Dubs threatened to walk off the pitch. Flustered by it all, Fraher reversed his decision in appeasement to the Dubs. But by then, a few of their players had left the field to make their way to work.
Fraher was left with no choice but to abandon the game and, following an ‘investigation’ by Central Council on the spot, Cork were awarded the title, a shield commissioned by the Irish Republican Brotherhood.
Those who sat on the Central Council meeting included Frank Dineen, then secretary of the GAA and later, the fourth president, along with Fraher among others.
Our man on duty for De Paper had praised the Dublin crowd for their ‘decency and propriety’ while chiding the players who ‘used language the reverse of parliamentary to the referee.’ He had his blade lowered for their conduct in the football final too, noting that while they did not attempt violence.
We suspect that The Cork Examiner’s correspondent might have been a prolific ‘stringer’, as The Kerry Sentinel expresses similar thoughts, noting ‘The indelible disgrace of the Dublin crowd…that they acted towards the Kerrymen, and towards both southern teams for that matter, in a scandalous and utterly un-Irish fashion.’
It revisits the ‘hooting and groaning’ comment, and how it sapped the spirit of the men from the Kingdom. One wonders what the same correspondent might make of Hill 16 nowadays.
Laune Rangers, fielding in blue jumpers and white togs, were captained by JP O’Sullivan, a noted track and field athlete who won the Irish Athletics All-Round Championship title in 1891 and was known as ‘The Champ.’ O’Sullivan would later become a trainer or subsequent Kerry teams.
He opened the scoring and added another. By half-time, the score was 0-3 apiece. Mention of the Dublin players was scarce. What we can gather is that they wore a white kit and John ‘Jack’ Kennedy captained them. J. Geraghty scored a point, but the goalscorer for Dublin was unnamed. The goal itself was worth five points in a rule brought in for that year’s championship.
Next up in the list of ‘nothing changes, ever’ examples is how reports suggest that the Kerry side ‘made a splendid display of what long kicking is,’ but rues that ‘individual play counts for naught against a well-disciplined corps of men who are used to cooperative work in the art of football kicking and passing. That was where the Dubliners shone today.’
The day was shrouded in a particular tragedy. A young man, John Nevin who was a member of the Faughs-Davitts club and a native of Nenagh, Tipperary, suffered a fatal collapse during the hurling match.
The game was halted as he was brought to the Mater Hospital and pronounced deceased on arrival. This incident was more widely reported on than the games themselves, being noted in the staunchly Unionist title, The Belfast Newsletter.
The remarkable thing you encounter when researching this period is just how fragile the standing of the GAA was at the time. Just one year later, only 118 clubs survived in the entire country. Kerry had just ten. The collapse of the agricultural industry in 1890 led to mass emigration and in the final years of that decade, 716,000 – 15% of the country’s population – left. The vast majority of them were young men, who would have been playing and administrating.
By 1896, Kerry county board refused to affiliate with the GAA after their arrangement to host the Munster final in Tralee was reneged upon.
Within a year, the county board had folded and, effectively, GAA activity in Kerry collapsed. But one final note. The name of the full-forward in the 1892 Kerry All-Ireland final team? One D. Clifford.
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