Killarney

<div style="height:29px" aria-hidden="true" class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



Make like a monarch and don’t fret about taxes. The only two certainties in this life are death and Kerry jerseys.



The two combined in remarkable fashion this past week when a Ballybunion woman braved the 16km queue to pay her respects to the late Queen Elizabeth, who was lying in state in Westminster Hall. The Kerry native did what many Kerry natives tend to do when they attend large scale events: she wore her Kerry GAA jersey, in this instance the 2019-2020 version.



I suppose it was only fitting that Kerry’s green and gold shirt made an appearance. After all, Kerry is The Kingdom. Our players are Princes of Pigskin. Dick Fitzgerald, the Killarney man who starred for Kerry in their first five All-Ireland titles in the early 20th century, was known as a King in a Kingdom of Kings. There’s undoubtedly a kind of royal synergy there.



At this juncture a less civilised, more boorish writer might make a quip about the differences that also exist between the Kerry football team and the British royal family – something about how our royals actually contribute to society, or how they are able to sweat. But not me. (Or should that be ‘not I’? Or ‘not us’? God help us, after all this time we Kerry men still haven’t figured out the Queen’s.)



It&#8217;s not the first time a Kerry jersey has popped up on television in a strange place. (Although, in fairness, it has scarcely popped up anywhere stranger.)



A recent one that springs to mind was also in England’s capital at another bastion of Englishness: Wembley Stadium. The event was the Euro 2020 semi-final between Italy and Spain. Two men &#8211; one wearing a 2020-2021 Kerry jersey and the other wearing one of Paul Galvin’s Keohane Athletic Club efforts &#8211; were seen arm in arm with the Azzurri faithful, maniacally celebrating Jorginho’s winning penalty.



It turned out the auxiliary Italians in question were Séamus and Niall O’Connor from Brosna. “The Italians were better craic when we went inside so we stuck with them,” Séamus later told Ian Dempsey.



For Irish people, no item of apparel – perhaps excepting Tiger Woods’ red Nike polo shirt – is more intrinsically linked to the lush parkland surrounds of Augusta National than the Kerry jersey. Kerry shirts have been spotted in the background at the Masters in Georgia on more or less a yearly basis for a decade.



The famous colours have also cropped up at Premier League grounds, at the World Snooker Championships in Sheffield, and even at the Super Bowl. Former player Kieran Donaghy wore his own No. 14 jersey at the 2013 NFL finale in New Orleans.



It’s a funny old trend and each new appearance is sure to create a stir, just as it did this past week in London. But why does it happen at all?



I suppose it’s a self-perpetuating phenomenon at this stage. Fans know that if they’re spotted wearing a Kerry jersey at some random global event it will get a good laugh back home, although I’m sure our Ballybunion sister was respectfully representing us at Westminster. The more it happens, the more it is likely to happen, and the more likely it is to happen at somewhere more unlikely.



But perhaps more importantly it is indicative of the sense of pride Kerry folk have in their county colours. Not many groups of GAA supporters are more passionate about their teams or more eager to tell people where they’re from than Kerry fans.



I mean, when you think about it, there’s a reason it’s the Kerry jersey that’s popping up everywhere and not the jersey of a smaller, less successful county, like Dublin.



<div style="height:30px" aria-hidden="true" class="wp-block-spacer"></div>

Why do Kerry jerseys keep popping up in strange places?

DOWNLOAD AND XPLORE