Sunday’s Kerry SFC final was less intriguing and frequently mundane, but no less easily synopsised for all that: East Kerry win. Championship in bother.

If only sorting the problems was as succinct.

The ‘Clear Air Boys’ have carted off four of the last five county championships in the Kingdom, supremacy that has somehow got stirred into the debate on whether there are too many senior divisions and not enough senior clubs. It’s an equation that continues to exercise the finest minds in the county.

The somewhat opportunistic – if understandable - entry into the conversation last week from Kerins O’Rahilly’s PRO (after their relegation to Intermediate) has increased the temperature but the suggestions therein to reposition divisional teams to the intermediate grade did little for clarity, much less for a solution to the bigger problem.

The issues facing Kerry’s blue riband championship are far more complex than Strand Road’s extra-time defeat at the hands of Tralee rivals, Na Gaeil. 

There are social and economic factors, Parish rule and boundary division inconsistencies, planning issues, teenage apathy and population shifts to consider. Demographics is arguably the greatest problem facing the Association. It’s not like this is exclusively a Kerry problem.

For anyone oblivious to this conundrum that has usurped the winter talk of Kerry’s All-Ireland final shortcomings, there are only eight senior clubs in Kerry these days (not enough), and eight divisional teams (too many). 

Note ‘divisional teams’ and not divisions: for instance the St Kieran’s amalgamation consists of seven clubs across three divisional boards – Tralee, East Kerry and North Kerry.

It has bubbled up again for several good reasons – not least the fact that the distinct club championships, by comparison, continue to excite with the Premier Junior decider between Listowel and Ballymacelligott going to extra time and drawing nearly 4,000 to Tralee a week ago. Fossa and Milltown-Castlemaine are yet to play their IFC final, nine weeks after their semi-final victories. 

But that’s a conversation for another day.

This is in stark contrast to the county championship which has been as thrilling as a wet sock hanging on a shower rod. Even around the East Kerry changing area on Sunday evening, the celebrations were hardly ecstatic. While some divisions rested key players for championship and West Kerry failed to fulfil a fixture, the likes of O’Rahilly’s have been fighting for their senior lives.

It has all come off as a little uncouth.

Several reports have been commissioned into the state and structure of the Kerry county championship, so it’s not like everyone woke up to the problem once O’Rahillys went south a week ago.

There is broad agreement on two facts: if the championship is to remain a sixteen-team competition, the club-division balance needs to change, probably to ten clubs and six divisional sides.

Secondly the idea of the divisional sides playing off in a pair of four-team sections to qualify for the quarter-finals (as in Cork) is idealistic though unrealistic if Kerry are going to continue making a habit of being involved in All-Irelands towards the end of July – and the Association’s split season is to remain.

Kerry GAA executives and their constituent clubs are going to take another swing at the problem before the end of the year though how much tinkering they can do for the 2024 renewal is debatable – more likely that any far-reaching proposals are pitched forward to the 2025 championship and remain relevant well beyond that.

‘Far-reaching’ in this context means primarily one unpalatable action – some divisional sides will cease to operate. The likeliest candidates for amalgamation into one North Kerry division are Feale Rangers and Shannon Rangers, two under-performing teams (there is a resurgence at minor level, mind, where they have already dovetailed). 

There may be some form of a play-off for the second elimination based, one suggests, on results over a defined period.

Any threat to the future of the divisions in Kerry may meet the business end of pitchforks and barricades. The pathway of a player from the smallest junior club to the senior county final appears sacrosanct. There will be intangibles and heritage and history will play a part. 

There is a sense that the likes of West Kerry and South Kerry are essentially untouchable for a reason no more substantive than these are storied football areas of the county and have to be ring-fenced. That irony will not be lost on the storied men of Rock Street and Strand Road in Tralee. Sauce, goose, gander and all that.

In the event of Kenmare or Templenoe being relegated back down to intermediate, they would likely fall in with South Kerry, as the Kenmare District team is no longer viable as a separate entity.

Other areas don’t have the tradition of a West or South Kerry but have grown in size and muscle either through demographics or chance. For instance, relegations mean Austin Stacks and Kerins O’Rahilly’s will join John Mitchels (29 Kerry SFC titles between them) as strange senior bedfellows with St Brendan’s in 2024. At least there will be another serious challenger to East Kerry’s hegemony.

While there appears growing acceptance that limiting senior status to eight clubs is counter-productive and no longer tenable, it is hard to avoid the conclusion the stance has hardened with the demise of three heavyweights in recent times – Legion, Stacks and O’Rahilly’s, even if the latter pair did campaign in recent times for an increase in the number of senior clubs from eight to at least ten.

Undoubtedly though, these are changed and challenging times. A report commissioned by Kerry GAA’s Joe Crowley a few years ago found that up to 1,900 teenagers in Tralee town were not affiliated to any GAA club. 

Kerins O’Rahilly’s have failed to field a minor team for the past couple of seasons, and have amalgamated with St Pat’s, Blennerville at underage, so not all their problems can be laid at the door of the cut-throat club championship.

There are few, at best, new planning permissions for housing developments in the big towns like Tralee, Killarney and Dingle and when the terms of what are archaic GAA parish rules are enforced, it can signpost catastrophic downriver problems for town clubs.

The drift of families out towards ribbon developments might damage Tralee and Killarney town clubs, but it has been a boon for clubs like Listry outside Killarney, and Ballymac outside Tralee, where housing and land is more accessible.

What it hasn’t done is weaken the likes of East Kerry and Mid Kerry. There is a cyclical element to the champions’ current pre-eminence and they do have a once-in-a-generation player plus his All-Star brother in their ranks. 

But migration to the areas around Killarney (Fossa, Listry, Glenflesk, Kilcummin) has given them a disproportionately large number of top-level players to choose from even if it’s still only eight clubs.

Mid Kerry also have four intermediate clubs in their amalgam – Laune Rangers, Milltown-Castlemaine, Beaufort and Glenbeigh-Glencar. In Sunday’s final, they also featured a wing forward from Cromane, Darren Houlihan, who grafted diligently for 40 minutes. 

For himself and his club, playing in a Kerry senior county final is a watershed moment in itself and one that could never happen if the championship was club-only. As East Kerry collected their 11th title in all, it was a small but significant storyline in the history of the Bishop Moynihan Cup.

Cromane’s Darren Houlihan: Kerry senior finalist.