Excitement builds on Limerick-Kerry border ahead of final showdown

IT’S been 20 years since the crown of Limerick senior football champions headed to Abbeyfeale – and locals are in no mood to wait any longer!

Fr Casey’s GAA Club have been runners-up in the Limerick Senior Football Championship on a record 17 occasions, most recently in 2024 when they were edged out by Adare.

But there's high hopes that this year’s panel will land the title for a first time since 2006 – and spark a massive party on the Kerry border on Sunday night!

Blue and white flags are hanging proudly throughout Abbeyfeale – and the children in St Mary’s Boys’ National School have already set an example for the senior players.

Mark Kavanagh, 12, and Ardan Brogan, 10, helped their school land the West Limerick Schools Cup just two weeks ago.

No fewer than nine of the senior team who started the semi-final win over Monaleen went St Mary’s Boys’ School, with six men on the bench for the club beginning their education at St Mary’s.

Mark, who captained his school’s team, is predicting a 3-12 to 3-9 win for Fr Casey’s. "It's a great atmosphere. We're all buzzing for the final,” he said.

The sixth-class student has marked intercounty star Eliah Riordan, who he described as “just a nice person – and very fast!”

Ardan will play in an underage football session at Mick Neville Park in Rathkeale, which is hosting the decider, this Sunday, something he admits he’s excited for. The youngster – predicting a four-point win for Fr Casey’s – says his favourite player is goalkeeper Shane O’Connell.

One of the reasons for this is because when Fr Casey’s won the football title in the year 2000 – after a 53 -year drought – it was young Ardan’s uncle Toddy McMahon, who was the last line of defence then.

Their teacher Julie O’Brien said it would mean the world for the men-in-blue to become Limerick’s football champions again. "We all remember the famine when we waited 53 years to win it in the year 2000. The scenes then were just amazing. Six years later we won it again. Then all the time inbetween, we had a lot of under-20 and minor victories, but we haven't managed to pull it off at senior level. We’ve been there or thereabouts. It would just be massive for the club, the town, the parish. It'd a huge lift to everybody to win a county championship and it's been too long.”

Julie remembers teaching many of the Fr Casey’s team, and said: “When I look at them out on the field, I can still see them on the small infant chairs and remember their first days of school. Now they are taller than me!”

She hopes after the mid-term break, the players will return to their old school, with the trophy – ironically known as the Fr Casey’s Cup – in tow.

Abbeyfeale councillor Liam Galvin captained Fr Casey’s to the title in 2000, and was club chairman in 2006. Twenty years on, he is still on the committee.

A Fr Casey’s win, he says, would mean a lot to the younger generation in the town. "It’d be a huge stepping stone in the development of our club,” he said.