Analysis: Long associated with commemorations and celebrations in the Co Kerry town, Old Comrades is now also aired to mark success on the football pitch
'Dingle town of high renown is known the world wide
It lies between the Conor Pass and the Wild Atlantic Tide
Each Street and Lane its past proclaim our glorious history
Our colours bright are red and white, our roots run strong and free'
The lyrics of Daingean Uí Chúis Abú, penned by Fergus Ó Flaithbheartaigh and Tom Lynch in 2005 during the town's name debate, describe Dingle (Daingean Uí Chúis) town and nod to our rich historic tapestry. When many readers think of Dingle today, it will be fancy restaurants, authentic old pubs with hardware shops still in use, hip festivals and beautiful scenery. For those of us from here, though, it's the traditions, the rich and varied history and indeed, the characters of the town that are the most treasured.
Dingle is essentially still a fishing town with a particular obsession with marching through the year and supporting our GAA club teams. This year has been a particularly good one for us on the latter front and, in case you'd not heard, Dingle won the Kerry senior county football final. The town has been decked out in bright red and white for months, with bunting and flags in support of the local team.
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
Ó RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta's An Saol Ó Dheas, bua CLG Daingean Uí Chúis i gCraobh Caide an Chontae
There was a gap of some 77 years since the last county win. While Dingle was undoubtedly a very different town then, the events that would have been the highlights in the calendar in 1948 were the Dingle Races, the Regatta and the Wran's Day, and all are still annual highlights today in the local community calendar. I have no doubt that the winning team in 1948 were also paraded around the town by Dingle’s band then, as our local heroes were just a few weeks ago. It’s tradition, after all.
Commemorating and celebrating
As well as great footballers, Dingle has a rich tradition of marching bands and a commitment to celebrating the calendar. Such traditions were widespread throughout the country at one stage and most towns and villages had marching bands from Temperance times in the 1860s. Dingle had a great Brass and Reed Band at that stage and a Pipe Band too, the latter being more involved in the political marches generally. It is difficult to pinpoint exactly when the fife came to the fore in the town’s traditions, but it has firmly become favoured since the late 19th century.
It is the sound of the bands that really captures a sense of our identity musically. Just like some members of the Dingle team today are descendants of that 1948 winning team, descendents of those bands who marched the streets over the past 160 years or so, are members of bands today.
Today, the Dingle Fife & Drum Band ring in St Patrick's Day at 6am, parade in commemoration on Easter Sunday and lead other celebrations through the year. The band also performs occasionally for funerals, usually only for former members of the band. In recent years we sadly marched and played for our bass drummer Leo O'Sullivan and young fifer and footballer Aodhán Ó Conchúir as well as the inimitable Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh who was a member of the Green & Gold Wren.
From Don MacMonagle, footage of the Dingle Fife & Drum band marching through the streets of Dingle at 6am on St. Patrick's Day 2024
Such sad events are important for the band and the families involved and, of course, it is tradition. The final tune that the band play to send our friends on their way is Old Comrades, which has also become an anthem for the town in recent years thanks to our gallant footballers. It's a tune we use to commemorate and celebrate.
While the Fife & Drum and the four Wran bands of the town have quite extensive repertoires, this tune holds the most resonance now. Instead of the usual Championées, Old Comrades has become the tune Dingle teams sing after great victories. It was played with gusto and chanted emphatically after Dingle lifted the Bishop Moynihan cup a few weeks ago.
In his speech delivered as Ghaoluinn, captain Paul Geaney mentioned the young boys of the town who had won their own primary school cup that week. It was the drummers and musicians from that school, Scoil Iognáid Rís, that led the team over Blennerville Bridge afterwards, before the Dingle Fife and Drum Band, accompanied by red fisherman’s flares, led the team around the town. A glorious, joyful and emotional march that we had all been looking forward to for a very long time.
I could not figure out exactly when Old Comrades started being used by the teams of the town, but current Dingle footballers Micheál Ó Flannúra and Matthew Ó Flaitheartaigh both pinpoint the start of it to the team’s winning of the Kerry Club final in 2015 (that’s the second Kerry county final – it’s complicated in the Kingdom!).
"It was after the 2015 club championship win versus Dr. Crokes", says Ó Flaitheartaigh. "We had just been presented with the cup and someone started chanting Old Comrades! A lot of fellas in the team would have been going out in their respective wrens too at the time. It made sense to sing that song. It felt right. It’s important because there is a strong tradition of the wren in Dingle town. Footballers who have lined out in the red and white of Dingle have worn their wren colours on the 26th of December going back a long, long time. It’s identity. It’s tradition and something that we’re so proud of.’
In 2018, the Dingle GAA Club continued to highlight the traditions and the tune by putting the words 'Old Comrades' underneath a wren bird on the back of the jerseys and they have remained there since. It should be noted the influence of Fergus Ó Flaithbheartaigh on this, proprietor of O'Flaherty’s Bar, leader of the Dingle Fife & Drum Band and, at that time, one of the sponsors of the Dingle team.
Ó Flannúra explains the resonance of the tune to him: ‘Old Comrades to me are the people of Dingle, the people who have played football for Dingle and the people who’ve contributed to the town, its heritage, its character. When it’s played I think of some of the people who have passed on over the years too. Old Comrades is our tune, Dingle’s song and there’s immense pride in being part of that.’
We never died a winter yet!
As well as having a great sense of tradition and history, I believe that townspeople, young and old, have a great resilience and a rebelliousness which has contributed to our particular sense of identity. That Dingleness is most visible on Paddy’s Morning and Wran’s Day and was certainly on display during the Dingle team’s recent celebrations. It was evident too in our campaigns to Save the Shore in the 1990s and the 2005 debate about the name of the town.
There is a mantra in Dingle, ‘we never died a winter yet’, inspired by the Foley Brothers of John Street rebelling against the Black and Tans and marching around the town on the Wran’s Day so that tradition would not be broken. That rebelliousness and resistance is also evident in this batch of Dingle footballers who have fought back and not walked away over the past few years despite devastating losses along the way - and we know that they are not finished yet!
Poems and songs will be written in time about Dingle’s recent footballing glory but we’ll wait another while yet for that and hopefully raise a few more glasses to our Daingean Uí Chúis warriors who have already shortened our dark winter and made us tremendously proud. Daingean Uí Chúis Abú & Old Comrades Abú!
Dingle/Daingean Uí Chúis play Mungret St Paul's of Limerick in the Munster Club Semi-Final on Sunday at Austin Stack Park, Tralee
Follow RTÉ Brainstorm on WhatsApp and Instagram for more stories and updates
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
