RTÉ Gaelic Games Correspondent Marty Morrissey examines rural depopulation and migration in the GAA, kicking off a three-part series with the South Kerry region.
On 27 July, Kerry footballers won their 39th All Ireland title in Croke Park in their county's illustrious history when they glided past Donegal.
Unquestionably a day to remember for the people of the kingdom, as their performance against the Ulster Champions only matched or upgraded what they had produced in their impressive victories over Armagh and Tyrone.
To beat three Ulster counties on the trot to lifting Sam Maguire was extra special and deleted from the memory bank, temporarily at least, any concerns people had in one particular region of the great kingdom of Kerry.
And they do have genuine concerns. First of all, we need some perspective here. Some of the greatest legends in the game of gaelic football, never mind in Kerry, have been born and bred in the majestic region known locally and nationally as South Kerry.
Think of the great Mick O’Connell from Valentia Island, as he soared in to the sky catching high balls in Croke Park, or Waterville’s Mick O’Dwyer, who was an outstanding footballer in his own right, but probably the greatest football manager of all time.
There’s also the town of Caherciveen that provided the powerful Jack O’Shea, the graceful Maurice Fitzgerald, and ace free taker Bryan Sheehan to club and county.
And of course, in the pantheon of great football managers sits Jack O’Connor from Dromid Pearses, who is the reigning All-Ireland winning manager and clearly is up there with the crème de la crème of Gaelic football managers.
All south Kerry men. All south Kerry heroes. All legends.
But here’s the thing. Amazingly, on All All-Ireland final day in Croke Park on the last Sunday in July this year, there was only one south Kerry man in the starting 15, or indeed the entire Kerry squad.
That distinction fell to left half forward Graham O’Sullivan from Dromid Pearses. To say this was unusual would be an understatement and a bit disconcerting if you are from south Kerry.
And the core of the problem is rural depopulation, migration and emigration.
It's reaching crisis level.
Top-heavy population pyramid
Enrolment of children in primary schools across the peninsula has fallen dramatically over the last 30 years. A decrease of 41% occurred from the 1993/94 school years to the 2021/22 school.
Total enrolment of boys and girls in primary schools fell from 1,153 to 684 across south Kerry.
Last September, only 83 pupils started across the 12 primary schools in south Kerry.
In Caherciveen town, there were 217 children in primary school in 1993/94. By 2021/22 it had fallen to 103.
It increased dramatically with the placement of children from Ukraine to 175 to the 2023/24 school year.
A year later it had fallen back to 158.
The shape of the population pyramid for the south Kerry area is completely top-heavy. In the 2022 Census for the area, there were more people in the over-75 age cohort than in the under-ten age cohort.
Even with participation levels above 70% of the available population, clubs in south Kerry are having to come together in larger combinations to field teams in underage football.
At under-16 level, St Mary’s Caherciveen, Reenard and Valentia combine to make a team. At under-14 level, St Mary’s Caherciveen, Reenard, Valentia, Dromid Pearses and Waterville have to come together to field a team.
On the other side of the Iveragh Peninsula, Sneem, Doire Fhíonáin Mór, Templenoe and Tuosist (from the Beara peninsula) combine under the brand Na Fianna to play at under-14, under-16 and under-18.
The journey for training and playing games for parents and children can be up to 65 kilometres each way.
As Michael Murphy, the Demographics Officer for Kerry GAA tells RTÉ News: "Population figures tell us that youth numbers and the school numbers trend is going to continue and that’s going to have a knock-on effect on the clubs of the county.
"We won’t be able to maintain the present number of adult clubs in the county if this trend continues."
'Legislation has to be brought in'
The south Kerry final last weekend was a thriller between St Mary’s Caherciveen and Portmagee which Caherciveen won.
Bryan Sheehan, a five-time All-Ireland medallist, was the goalkeeper for St Mary’s and still produces the magic for his club at 40 years of age.
He is back where he started his football career; between the posts. He is concerned about the future for his club but also for the region.
"Legislation has to be brought in regard to planning. Let people move home. I know people who want to come back to their own locality and I think if we encourage people to move back to rural Ireland, we’ll get people moving here and living here, families coming back here and, all of a sudden, the population grows, and with that football grows as well," he said.
Joseph McCrohan is from Reenard and is chairman of South Kerry GAA. He is fully aware of the cost of housing in the region and why so many well-off people from Ireland and abroad buy houses in this most magical part of the country.
Unfortunately, many of those houses are empty for several months of the year. While he’s also deeply concerned that so many young people are moving to urban centres like Cork or Dublin, or even further afield like Australia.
That demographic obviously has a huge impact on birth rates in the region, so what can be done to boost the population and maintain GAA strength in the area?
"We have to create more jobs and we have to create an environment where jobs can be created and we see tourism as one of the growth areas," he said.
"We have a new greenway on the way to South Kerry. We have the possibility of a new World Heritage Site in Valentia and out of that we hope more jobs will flow and more families will return to live in the area and more footballers will be available to teams."
It is important to note that south Kerry’s depopulation and migration situation is not unique. In reality, South Kerry is just a mirror image of what is happening across the country in so many rural areas.
The core of the GAA is pride of place, the sense of belonging whether it is a town, village or parish.
Amalgamations may be a treatment for the problem, but perhaps not the long-term cure. Jobs and getting people to return home and build or buy houses has never been so important to the region, but absolutely crucial to the future of the GAA in places like South Kerry.
The three-part series on Rural Depopulation and Migration in the GAA by Marty Morrissey begins this evening on the Six One News.
Tomorrow’s focus will be on Cork city’s northside and Midleton.
