At some point there I was in two minds about going up to the Munster football final in Limerick on Sunday. My daughter, who would normally go to these games with me, couldn’t go, so I was kind of in limbo for a while.
I’d also been up to see Kerry play in the under-20 game in Galway the previous night. Then I very quickly thought if the Clifford brothers, David and Paudie, are up for playing for Kerry the day after their mother died, it’s no task for me to jump in the car and go to support them. And I’m glad I did.
Personally I wouldn’t be close to the Clifford family, but would know from the outside that they are a very close-knit family, and their mother Ellen was very involved with their football, and would have been at every game, club and county, since David and Paudie were knee-high.
So the decision to play on Sunday was never in doubt. The family are so invested in Fossa, in Kerry, and in the fabric of the GAA, the last thing they were going to do was not tog out for a Munster final.
The year it all worked out: Brian Lohan on Clare’s All-Ireland deliverance
Irish Times Sportswoman of the Year Awards: ‘The greatest collection of women in Irish sport in one place ever assembled’
Malachy Clerkin: After 27 years of being ignored by British government, some good news at last for Seán Brown’s family
Two-time Olympic champion Kellie Harrington named Irish Times/Sport Ireland Sportswoman of the Year 2024
That’s only giving my impression, having gone through a similar experience.
In 2002 we drew with Cork in the Munster semi-final in Killarney on the Sunday, and then our father Micheál passed on the Tuesday morning. My brothers Marc and Tomás were on the team as well at the time. And Páidí, who was our manager, had lost his brother. But there was never a question of us not playing in the replay, because that’s the way we all felt.
Like the Cliffords, Gaelic football was a part of our life. It was simple question to answer – we’d be back out there.
The Cliffords would have known that if that question was asked of their mother, there would only be one answer too. They were going to play. Same as ourselves.
So after we drew with Cork on the Sunday, buried our father on the Thursday, we went down to Páirc Uí Chaoimh on the Sunday, for the replay. And we lost.
Every family is different, and everyone has their own way of dealing with grief. In my experience, and I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing, but you are so immersed in the training, you also see that as a release.
So I remember after we buried our dad on the Thursday, we went back training that night in Killarney. He was waked at home, so we’d been round the house the Tuesday, the Wednesday and the Thursday, and that takes some toll as well. It is wearing.
We knew we were playing again on the Sunday, so to get the opportunity to train, with the team, with Páidí, was a bit of a release. Just to escape the morbidity of the whole thing and get out on the football field.
When we went to the replay, there was actually a poor enough Kerry crowd in Cork that day. Some of them felt they shouldn’t go down, that the game shouldn’t have been played. But we never saw it like that, and in fact it was the one time you’d want a good Kerry crowd there.
Everywhere you go people are acting differently around you. Even your opposition. It’s certainly unusual where the Cork players are being nice to you down in Páirc Uí Chaoimh. That took some adjusting to.
We can’t presume at all what the Clifford brothers were thinking, but getting back in with their team-mates, there would be some comfort in that too.
Because I know as well over the years everyone wants a piece of you, and the team situation allows you to be yourself, to get into the team bus would also have been a very comfortable environment, a release for them.
Looks, there’s no doubt it’s a very tough and difficult few days, and again, not that I think it was ever in doubt, but I think it would have been a great release for them to get out on the football field, and express themselves.
And the two lads did their job. They are Kerry to the core, and conducted themselves impeccably.
For the lads they probably also feel they’re grieving very publicly, because they are so popular, two of the best players in the country, their mother died and that’s a big story. They should be given some space now, and it is draining, mentally and physically, over those couple of days. They’ll take their bit of a break now.
There is a grieving process, but the football also takes on a life of its own. After losing the replay to Cork, we’d a game nearly every weekend after that, because we were in the back door.
We went on a bit of a run then, and played some great football, and maybe sometimes in the past these things have galvanised teams. The fact the lads played on Sunday, I think can only bring the group even closer, they’ll definitely bond that bit more.
Everyone would appreciate that they did their job manfully and respectfully, then went home to be with their people. For a tight-knit GAA family, that’s the way they rock.
We lost the All-Ireland later in 2002. Then the evenings start to close in, and the wheels start to turn. You lost your dad, and you lost the All-Ireland . . . and that’s when it starts to hit you.
On the game itself I think Clare are better than they showed, and maybe the whole occasion discombobulated them a small bit too, because they looked off, spilled a lot of ball around the place, and their execution and basic skills were way off, even if Kerry were sharp, precise, and got the job done.
I felt on the day that was in it too the Kerry crowd might have been better, a day to support and respect the Clifford family as much as the Kerry team.
Because like I said, there was no doubt whatsoever they were going to play. And I know if I was faced with that same decision tomorrow morning, I’d do the same again.
