Organising committee chairman John O\u2019Dwyer: \u2018They\u2019re great ambassadors. I\u2019d like to think that they gave a lot to Kerry football, and created an environment where we have fellas like David Clifford playing football today\u2019\n<\/p>\n
On Friday, December 5 three iconic milestones in the Kingdom\u2019s storied footballing history will be recognised at the INEC Arena in the Gleneagle Hotel in Killarney, namely the All-Ireland SFC triumph of 1975, the four-in-a-row heroes of 1978 to 1981, and the three-in-a-row stars of 1984 to 1986.<\/p>\n
Chairperson of the organising committee, John O\u2019Dwyer, whose father Mick was the Kerry manager for all of those eight All-Ireland Championship successes \u2013 and who sadly passed away last April \u2013 said that it was important to pay tribute to the county\u2019s GAA legends.<\/p>\n
\u201cEarlier in the year, the [1975] minor team celebrated the 50 years, so it kind of emanated as a seed in Patrick\u2019s [O\u2019Sullivan] brain that we should do something to reflect the past, celebrate the present, and look forward to the future,\u201d O\u2019Dwyer told The Kerryman at the official launch in Tralee on Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hope to raise a few pound as well for development in Currans, and also to celebrate those that are still around. We\u2019re missing a few as you know, P\u00e1id\u00ed [\u00d3 S\u00e9], Tim [Kennelly], John Egan, who have all passed away.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are also a few chairpersons who would have been fairly instrumental when my father was involved over the years. They\u2019re gone as well. We\u2019re hoping that members of their families will be able to show up on the night, and we\u2019re selling tables. It\u2019s gone quite well so far, and with minimal effort.<\/p>\n
\u201cHermitage Green are playing for us, and Paul Byrne, who does a lot of this kind of stuff, is organising the whole thing. It will be a good show, it\u2019s black tie, and we\u2019re hoping that we can get as much support as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n
With eight All-Ireland senior titles won over a glorious 12-year period, John O\u2019Dwyer believes that it\u2019s crucial to recognise a period of time that spawned many successful Kerry teams since, and will continue to inspire the generations to come.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reason why this is such a big thing for us is that a lot of them started as minors in 1970, and they were still in action in 1986, so it spanned a long period,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey won a lot of medals, and I\u2019d like to think that they gave a lot to Kerry football, and created an environment where we have fellas like David Clifford playing football today, who would have looked back at fellas like them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re great ambassadors. They went all over the world, the whole lot of them as a team, from about 1975 up to 1986, and they represented Kerry as good as anybody has represented any county. It\u2019s good to be able to honour them on the night.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another member of the fund-raising committee is Darragh \u00d3 S\u00e9, who won six All-Ireland senior medals between 1997 and 2009. The An Ghaeltacht man was thrilled to get involved in such a unique occasion.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were our heroes growing up, and I remember them clearly. When I was asked to get involved it\u2019s never a chore when you\u2019re doing stuff like this for Kerry, especially in the year of an All-Ireland win as well, and particularly in the year that Micko passed away, the manager of this great team,\u201d \u00d3 S\u00e9 said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt goes from generation to generation, and the purpose of the fund-raiser on the night is to provide for the new generations coming through, the ten and twelve-year-olds who are looking at the David Cliffords and Paudie Cliffords of this world, and the Seanie O\u2019Sheas, and all that.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re the lads that we have to nurture going forward, to keep this amazing tradition. Kerry have always been competitive, because you put something back into it. Unknown to themselves, that Kerry team gave us so much pleasure over the years, the Golden Years.\u201d<\/p>\n
The event will be hosted by Kerry\u2019s 2004 All-Ireland-winning captain Dara \u00d3 Cinn\u00e9ide and RTE broadcaster Daith\u00ed \u00d3 S\u00e9. A table of ten (with a limited number remaining) costs \u20ac5,000, and can be booked through Aileen Foley at centreofexcellence.kerry@gaa.ie<\/p>\n
\u201cThe big thing is that all the money raised is going to Currans. We\u2019re trying to finish the centre. We\u2019re trying to get all the pitches done. We\u2019re making massive progress with the 3G pitch,\u201d said Kerry GAA chairperson Patrick O\u2019Sullivan.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the beginning of spring, we\u2019re starting on the ladies pitch that we\u2019re putting in there. We have another pitch as well where we\u2019re looking at how we can manoeuvre it inside the grounds. When we get all that done, we\u2019ll have the playing surfaces done, and then it\u2019s just to finish the main building.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter that, we will look at the next project within Currans. With more teams, you need more facilities, but the playing pitches are the most important thing to us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Organising committee chairman John O\u2019Dwyer: \u2018They\u2019re great ambassadors. I\u2019d like to think that they gave a lot to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84876,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[6937,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-84875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-kerry-gaa","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}