SQUARING THE CIRCLE

A WEEK on and the memory is a blanket warming Fergal Ó Sé's heart, the joy as thunderous and elemental as a great Atlantic wave breaking on the untamed West Kerry shoreline.

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An Ghaeltacht's thrilling All-Ireland Intermediate Club triumph was a poem about place and identity, for their 53-yearold manager the most powerful celebration of sport's capacity to bring people together and touch them at the heart.

His team were propelled by a desire to represent and perpetuate a culture and a way of life that is as fundamental and essential as the blood running through their veins.

"We are the most We and our westerly club in Kerry, in Munster, in Ireland are surrounded by beauty own language. As Dara Ó'Cinnéide (Kerry great and club chairman) said on a podcast, we are very, very proud of that." Ó Sé is a passionate man, imbued with a sense of family and home that propels him through the days.

Listening to him humbly, lyrically recount what this masterpiece of his life means, his seanchaí tones as rugged and hypnotic as the lands by which they were shaped, strays into the happy territory of spine-tingling.

How football exercises this wild, gorgeous corner of Kerry conjures a description of the bard John Donne's greatest works as something that "can offer joy so violent it kicks the metal out of your knees, and sorrow large enough to eat you." O Sé says: "I'm principal of Scoil Naomh Eirc which is at the foot of Mount Brandon.

Everything is taught through Irish.

"We try to instil that grá that love of place and culture in the kids. It is part of their heritage and something special that was left to them." At the final whistle in Croke Park, he was devoured by the moment's sudden brute force. The primal scream of identity. A tribe bound by the glue of shared passion.

In the storied architecture of Kerry football, the Ó'Sé family stand as enduring and vital and tall as the marble columns of the Parthenon.

Collectively, Fergal's younger brothers, Darragh, Tomás and Marc (both pictured right), along with his immortal uncle Páidí, won 24 All-Ireland medals with Kerry.