All-Ireland final day, a dish served with a side of nervous energy and high jinks

Cavanman's Diary

On Marlborough St, I saw him coming in the distance, the unmistakeable wandering gait of a salesman, left arm laden down with dozens of green and yellow woollen headbands.

He marched at a good clip, but not too quickly so as not be able to apply the brakes if he managed to make eye contact with a potential punter. A Kerryman, pint in hand, saw his chance.

“How are you doing?” he enquired with faux earnestness. “Tell me this - are they Donegal or Kerry headbands?”

The hawker paused, floundering, as if decoding the question.

“Oh, Kerry, Kerry,” he eventually replied, scrambling, in a thick accent. But he had walked into the trap. A cheer went up; the Kerrymen were exultant. Up in the city for the day, drinking a pint and taking a hand at the locals. Gas, boy.

And although he was affronted, experience told the salesman to drop it – no point wasting time - and he quickly moved on without a sale.

It was All-Ireland final day, a dish always served with a side of nervous energy and high jinks. I tasted it first at the Boar’s Head on Capel St, where the crowd was an uneven split of Cavan and Kerry and there wasn’t a Donegal jersey to be seen.

A common refrain from the Cavan people I spoke to was that they had always been fans of Donegal in the past – there is an undeniable affinity there between the counties, with much crossover – but had cooled on them this year. The prosecution’s argument tended to rest on the carry-on at the Cavan v Donegal game in Breffni Park earlier this summer. They put it to me that it left a sour taste. Their case was strong.

All of this culminated in the surreal situation whereby Kerry, playing in their 61st All-Ireland final, had the backing of the neutrals (based on my unscientific straw poll anyway). And that, it must be said, takes a bit of doing.

Who was actually going to win it? The one thing everyone agreed on was that it was going to be close. So, none the wiser really, we continued on foot through the city. Dublin is in rough old shape these days but it can still put on its finery for the big day - or maybe it was because the crowds were so great that, happily, much of the decay was hidden.

Still, it felt like a party. Drinkers spilled outside the pubs and frazzled bar staff herded them back in from the roads like sheep.

On O’Connell St and its surrounds, it was all Kerry. As we got closer to the stadium, that changed; Donegal were out in force along the North Circular Rd and Drumcondra and, I was reliably informed, Ballybough might as well have been Ballyshannon.

To the stadium and, at the back of the Hogan Stand, Maurice Fitzgerald fleetingly appeared, like an apparition. “Did you see him?” my Kildare friend wondered.

But sadly I had missed the great artist from Cahirsiveen. When I turned around, the only Kerryman I recognised was Danny Healy-Rae, pressing the flesh, shirt and mouth agape, showing no ill-effects from his run-in with a Garda earlier.

I had been asked to write a small piece in the match programme giving my prediction, an ego boost of unquantifiable proportions. In it, I had tipped the Kingdom. Now, though, watching Donegal up close, I wasn’t sure.

Twice, they were called into line by the PA announcer; later, they broke away from the parade. If they won, they would be hailed as upstart punks who refused to tip the cap to anyone; if they lost, the unwillingness to adhere to the protocols would look foolish and unbecoming in hindsight. Which would it be?

I met Terry Hyland, who doesn’t dither like me. “Kerry,” said Terry, when asked the question. Never too far wrong, that man.

We were sat in the corner of the stand, near enough to the action, close to where David Clifford was stationed. When he fired over his second score, the thought came to mind that we were in a privileged position to be watching true greatness at such proximity.

Soon, Kerry had built up a big lead; Donegal were so off-kilter that we questioned if there was a masterplan here. Not marking tightly (bar Clifford, who is unmarkable anyway, despite McCole’s manly effort), bombing kick-outs on top of Kerry’s fielders, showing an unwillingness to take on two-point shots. Was this some sort of rope-a-dope? Surely they hadn’t gotten things this wrong…

As the game wore on, it transpired that they had and it lent an unsatisfactory feeling to proceedings. Kerry may well have had the answers anyway but Donegal, the swottiest boys in class, asked no questions of them. Their regrets will linger, maybe for a lifetime.

When Joe O’Connor hit the net with a couple of minutes to go, we skipped town so as to beat the rush. Already, thousands of Donegal supporters were streaming out.

That was how, around the time Gavin White met Jarlath Burns, in a surreal turn of events, we found ourselves in a hipster’s hang-out on Parnell St. A jazz quartet were playing in the corner before an appreciative crowd; I may be imagining this part but memory tells me a few of them were stroking their goatees. The wait for a drink was interminable, not that it was busy; they were preparing cocktails, each one a mini masterpiece, like Michaelangelo’s David, only slightly slower to complete.

I got the sense the achingly-cool staff didn’t know the match was on or if they did, they found it a minor inconvenience. Reinforcements - on our side of the bar - arrived and we were appreciative of the table but we didn’t stay long; there was more talk of Ella Fitzgerald than my man Maurice. It wasn’t our scene.

While leaving there, I met a denizen of the Kingdom who was restored to the Kerryman’s natural state of triumphalism. He asked me for a light; I sensed a parable was incoming and was happy to oblige.

“A Donegal fella told me earlier that they were the fittest team football has ever seen,” he announced theatrically, the emphasis on fit-test teammm, his tone making it clear there was more to come. A pause followed as he lit his cigarette and took a luxuriant drag, adopting the smug air of a man about to cash in a winning docket.

“Well,” he continued, exhaling smoke ostentatiously into the ether, “I told him that may be the case but Ethiopia never won the World Cup. You need ballers, boy!”

Kerry had those and after the balling’s over, they have Sam, too. We retreated to Capel St again, where someone made the point that for all the hoopla about new rules, "'effin Kerry" had just won the All-Ireland final by 10 points. The shouting hadn’t died down and already, it seemed, the neutrals had turned against them...

Truly, the old order remains.