YOU WONDER IF Jack O’Connor is the sentimental type, outside of the sometimes gruff and wry exterior.
When he stands on the line this Saturday as Kerry manager, it has to cross his mind – the two season he put down as Kildare manager.
But before that, he had a connection to the county that ran way back to his teenage years.
In 1978, he went to Maynooth University – or St Patrick’s College Maynooth as it was known then as a prominent Seminary – to study Arts.
His digs were five miles away in Leixlip and it didn’t take too long for both college and town to suss out that there was a handy footballer with south Kerry genes among them.
Honours
Leixlip and Celbridge formed an amalgamation at minor level called St Paul’s at the time. Two big towns forming an amalgamation would raise eyebrows now, but their opponents in the minor final was a cobbled-up side from Sarsfields and Moorefield, known as Newbridge.
St Paul’s triumphed, and O’Connor picked up one of his first footballing honours in the short grass county.
From then, he would play seniors for Leixlip. Another man in the college that became well aware of him and would literally bump into him on the club scene was the well-travelled Luke Dempsey, who played for Johnstownbridge.
Dempsey had his own gang of college buddies, but he knew of O’Connor alright.
“It was a small college,” he reminisced this week.
“You passed first year, you were on the pig’s back because there was no formal exams in second year!”
Being free from May to September in that year, Dempsey fancied seeing a small bit of the world and headed to New York that summer to play football for the Sligo club along with prominent Kildare GAA figure Mark Shaw, whose brother Noel togged out alongside O’Connor in that minor team.
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Back then, Maynooth had any amount of football to fire the imagination of the young students and the would-be clerics.
Dempsey and O’Connor were known as ‘lay’ students. There was a domestic league played within the college against what he calls, ‘The Divine teams.’
And that was skin and hair flying because we actually won an All-Ireland with a Fresher’s team. We were the only team for donkey’s years to win the league and championship,” says Dempsey.
“We had a really good first year team. There were about 12 county minors. Charlie Lynch from Tyrone and we had a great team there, ’77, ’78 freshers. And some of the Clerics were much older than us.”
Almost 40 years later, Dempsey arrived in Moorefield as manager after some stunning successes managing Westmeath underage teams, Westmeath seniors, Longford and Carlow.
Luke Dempsey while Moorefield manager. Ryan Byrne / INPHO
Ryan Byrne / INPHO / INPHO
Dempsey was lucky to have Lorcán O’Rourke alongside him. A winner of an All-Ireland Junior hurling title with Kildare in 1966 and GAA National Handball Administrator through the ‘90s, they got wind of two handy footballers living nearby.
Of south Kerry stock, as it happens: Éanna and Cian O’Connor. Former Kerry minors. Sons of Jack and Bridie.
“His two sons were teaching in that neck of the woods, around Naas,” recalls Dempsey, and the minimal amount of persuasion it took for them to sign up in the winter of 2013.
“And that got me back in touch with Jack as he used to come up to watch the sons playing.”
Moorefield won the next two county titles. The first in 2013, a ‘Battle of the Bridge’ when they beat neighbours Sarsfields 2-14 to 0-13.
The following year it was the same two teams again in the decider. It took a replay for Moorefield to come out on top, 1-14 to 1-6, with Éanna O’Connor landing 0-4.
Bridie and Jack O'Connor with sons Éanna and Cian. Lorraine O'Sullivan / INPHO
Lorraine O'Sullivan / INPHO / INPHO
He would later progress up to the Kildare senior panel and, given his familiarity with the county, Jack would later land as county manager.
In the Covid-interrupted league of 2020, they would finish third in Division 2, a one-point loss away to Clare costing promotion. They would lose the Leinster semi-final to Meath.
In 2021, Jack got Kildare up to Division 1, and they reached a Leinster final only to lose 1-9 to 0-20 to Dublin.
While many in Kildare felt he was gearing up for year three, he said differently.
Logistics were at him and the drive from Kerry. There were rumours that he wasn’t entirely satisfied with the commitment given.
And there was always the lure of his own.
When Kerry lost to Tyrone in the 2021 All-Ireland semi-final, Peter Keane was under pressure.
It had been a decade since he last managed Kerry, with Éamonn Fitzmaurice graduating from his backroom team to take it from 2013 to 2018 and after that, Peter Keane for three seasons.
Around this time, Jack popped up as a surprise guest of the Irish Examiner GAA Podcast.
He would say different but it was a surprise that he acquiesced on this occasion when heat was coming on Keane in late August.
By 24 September, he was named as the Kerry manager.
At 65, he is one of the elder county managers. He had advertised 2025 as his last season, but there was something in the way Kerry won the All-Ireland, beating Armagh, Tyrone and Donegal along the way, that made him reconsider.
Last year was not without its fraught moments with defeat to Meath sparking something.
He’s in the exact same position now, with the hammering to Donegal in Killarney leaving many expecting a sharpened Kerry team in Newbridge this Saturday.
Shaking hands with Jim McGuinness after Kerry's heavy defeat to Donegal. James Lawlor / INPHO
James Lawlor / INPHO / INPHO
Is Dempsey, another similarly long-serving manager, surprised at his longevity?
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“I’d answer that by saying the one thing you have to do, in order to have that longevity, is have good people with you,” Dempsey says.
“Cian O’Neill would be a really excellent coach to have. Jack wouldn’t be going anywhere without a very good team.
“And that keeps you going, because you are learning all the time. I suppose us older men, you sort of go into coaching naturally by yourself and you learn as you go along and imitation.”
Funny thing. Both Dempsey and O’Connor would have gone up to visit the late John Morrisson in Armagh and picked his brains about coaching and management. That was one of O’Connor’s first calls when he was taking over from Páidí Ó Sé.
“The modern guys like Cian O’Neill and the strength and conditioning fellas, the modern coaches, they are super,” Dempsey continues.
“They make the game so exciting. With the new rules, fitness levels have gone through the roof so Jack wouldn’t be as enthusiastic as he seems without a really good backroom team.
“And that’s the change that stands out over the last decade or so. Backroom teams have become an integral part of the whole success of county teams now.”
When Dempsey was managing, he had players such as Ronan Sweeney in Moorefield and John Heslin in St Loman’s continually questioning and asking around elements of preparation and training.
“They made sure your training sessions always had to be excellent,” he says.
And Jack has enough stellar talents to ensure the same. Why wouldn’t he continue?
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From boy to man - Jack O'Connor's links with Kildare run deep
YOU WONDER IF Jack O’Connor is the sentimental type, outside of the sometimes gruff and wry exterior.
When he stands on the line this Saturday as Kerry manager, it has to cross his mind – the two season he put down as Kildare manager.
But before that, he had a connection to the county that ran way back to his teenage years.
In 1978, he went to Maynooth University – or St Patrick’s College Maynooth as it was known then as a prominent Seminary – to study Arts.
His digs were five miles away in Leixlip and it didn’t take too long for both college and town to suss out that there was a handy footballer with south Kerry genes among them.
Honours
Leixlip and Celbridge formed an amalgamation at minor level called St Paul’s at the time. Two big towns forming an amalgamation would raise eyebrows now, but their opponents in the minor final was a cobbled-up side from Sarsfields and Moorefield, known as Newbridge.
St Paul’s triumphed, and O’Connor picked up one of his first footballing honours in the short grass county.
From then, he would play seniors for Leixlip. Another man in the college that became well aware of him and would literally bump into him on the club scene was the well-travelled Luke Dempsey, who played for Johnstownbridge.
Dempsey had his own gang of college buddies, but he knew of O’Connor alright.
“It was a small college,” he reminisced this week.
“You passed first year, you were on the pig’s back because there was no formal exams in second year!”
Being free from May to September in that year, Dempsey fancied seeing a small bit of the world and headed to New York that summer to play football for the Sligo club along with prominent Kildare GAA figure Mark Shaw, whose brother Noel togged out alongside O’Connor in that minor team.
Back then, Maynooth had any amount of football to fire the imagination of the young students and the would-be clerics.
“We had a really good first year team. There were about 12 county minors. Charlie Lynch from Tyrone and we had a great team there, ’77, ’78 freshers. And some of the Clerics were much older than us.”
Almost 40 years later, Dempsey arrived in Moorefield as manager after some stunning successes managing Westmeath underage teams, Westmeath seniors, Longford and Carlow.
Dempsey was lucky to have Lorcán O’Rourke alongside him. A winner of an All-Ireland Junior hurling title with Kildare in 1966 and GAA National Handball Administrator through the ‘90s, they got wind of two handy footballers living nearby.
Of south Kerry stock, as it happens: Éanna and Cian O’Connor. Former Kerry minors. Sons of Jack and Bridie.
“His two sons were teaching in that neck of the woods, around Naas,” recalls Dempsey, and the minimal amount of persuasion it took for them to sign up in the winter of 2013.
“And that got me back in touch with Jack as he used to come up to watch the sons playing.”
Moorefield won the next two county titles. The first in 2013, a ‘Battle of the Bridge’ when they beat neighbours Sarsfields 2-14 to 0-13.
The following year it was the same two teams again in the decider. It took a replay for Moorefield to come out on top, 1-14 to 1-6, with Éanna O’Connor landing 0-4.
He would later progress up to the Kildare senior panel and, given his familiarity with the county, Jack would later land as county manager.
In the Covid-interrupted league of 2020, they would finish third in Division 2, a one-point loss away to Clare costing promotion. They would lose the Leinster semi-final to Meath.
In 2021, Jack got Kildare up to Division 1, and they reached a Leinster final only to lose 1-9 to 0-20 to Dublin.
While many in Kildare felt he was gearing up for year three, he said differently.
Logistics were at him and the drive from Kerry. There were rumours that he wasn’t entirely satisfied with the commitment given.
And there was always the lure of his own.
When Kerry lost to Tyrone in the 2021 All-Ireland semi-final, Peter Keane was under pressure.
It had been a decade since he last managed Kerry, with Éamonn Fitzmaurice graduating from his backroom team to take it from 2013 to 2018 and after that, Peter Keane for three seasons.
Around this time, Jack popped up as a surprise guest of the Irish Examiner GAA Podcast.
He would say different but it was a surprise that he acquiesced on this occasion when heat was coming on Keane in late August.
By 24 September, he was named as the Kerry manager.
At 65, he is one of the elder county managers. He had advertised 2025 as his last season, but there was something in the way Kerry won the All-Ireland, beating Armagh, Tyrone and Donegal along the way, that made him reconsider.
Last year was not without its fraught moments with defeat to Meath sparking something.
He’s in the exact same position now, with the hammering to Donegal in Killarney leaving many expecting a sharpened Kerry team in Newbridge this Saturday.
Is Dempsey, another similarly long-serving manager, surprised at his longevity?
“I’d answer that by saying the one thing you have to do, in order to have that longevity, is have good people with you,” Dempsey says.
“Cian O’Neill would be a really excellent coach to have. Jack wouldn’t be going anywhere without a very good team.
“And that keeps you going, because you are learning all the time. I suppose us older men, you sort of go into coaching naturally by yourself and you learn as you go along and imitation.”
Funny thing. Both Dempsey and O’Connor would have gone up to visit the late John Morrisson in Armagh and picked his brains about coaching and management. That was one of O’Connor’s first calls when he was taking over from Páidí Ó Sé.
“The modern guys like Cian O’Neill and the strength and conditioning fellas, the modern coaches, they are super,” Dempsey continues.
“They make the game so exciting. With the new rules, fitness levels have gone through the roof so Jack wouldn’t be as enthusiastic as he seems without a really good backroom team.
“And that’s the change that stands out over the last decade or so. Backroom teams have become an integral part of the whole success of county teams now.”
When Dempsey was managing, he had players such as Ronan Sweeney in Moorefield and John Heslin in St Loman’s continually questioning and asking around elements of preparation and training.
“They made sure your training sessions always had to be excellent,” he says.
And Jack has enough stellar talents to ensure the same. Why wouldn’t he continue?
***
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All-Ireland GAA Kerry KERRY-KILDARE Kildare