IN THE NAME OF THE FADA

Marc Ó Sé on the 'Sprid, Croí, Caid, Teanga' that makes An Ghaeltacht special

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land that An Ghaeltacht encapsulates, it would take 25 minutes to drive to Ó Cinnéide's homeplace from ours.

Because of that distance between the parishes and schools, we didn't know the likes of Dara at all well when we were young, apart from my brother Darragh - they played underage together.

We were all in different primary schools, which fed into our club - Cill Mhic an Domhnaigh, where we went; as well as An Feothanach, An Mhuiríoch, Glens, Dún Chaoin, Ventry and Ballyferriter.

I'm not sure if it's unique to our club, but it was unusual that us club players didn't know each other at all when we got going.

Liam Ó Rócháin, Tommy Dowd, Seán Ó Catháin and Jack Griffin were the mentors at underage.

As the youngest, I was watching all this, looking at the lads playing and wanting all the time to be part of it.

When we were growing up, we had a primary schools competition that was as important as the Sam Maguire to us: the Corn Mhic Eoin.

It was the first time we encountered the lads who would become our clubmates, and it was fiercely competitive.

The kingpins, the Real Madrids of the peninsula, were Feothanach, around 12 or 13 miles from our homeplace and where my brother Fergal is now principal.

That competition - from 8 years old to about 12 - was our first introduction to football.

My first year, Feothanach emerged with this tall, athletic full forward who was highly effective. Dáithí Ó Sé, who went on to be a TV presenter and, more importantly, the Rose of Tralee host, was a decent footballer back then.

Those lads won the cup year after year after year. But my last year playing, we won it at last. We won the Corn Mhic Eoin, our All-Ireland.

For the record, Tomás never won one, which is a card I'm sometimes forced to play.

The stories and names that thread together the club's history were passed on to us.