You are probably best known as football player and previous captain of the Kerry football team. You were captain in 2004 when Kerry won the All Ireland Championship for the 33rd time. How did you feel at that time?

I was very proud for my family, for my friends and especially for my club. An Ghaeltacht football club. Without them I wouldn’t have been captain of the team and I felt that I was representing them on the day. It was a big honour for me to put my tribe in the centre of it on the biggest sporting day in the country.

On that same day, you gave a speech in Irish. Had you decided to do that beforehand? What inspired you to do that?

There was no real decision involved. It would’ve been a decision if it had been English I was speaking. I don’t think the rest of the country understands that Irish is our first language and that it is as natural as water running or grass growing that a man or woman from the Gaeltacht would speak our own language. I hadn’t decided anything and it didn’t occur to me until there was ten minutes left in the game that I had to make a speech. I knew, however, that I wouldn’t be speaking in English and that it was important that I presented myself as a Gael for the big day of the Gaeil.

When the All-Ireland Championship is on, there is a conflict between club and county. Clubs losing out on county players etc. Which of them did you prefer at that time of your life?

That is a conflict that has always been there and will be forever. The two don’t need to be in competition with eachother and they can help and cooperate with eachother in many ways. It’s just that there will be need for more understanding and more communication. It is sometimes forgotten that each county player is a club player first. The leaning people have to their county is strong but there are few connectionas as close as the link a player has to their club. When I was playing, players were allowed to play more gaems with their club but that has changed with the last ten years or so and I understand why that is. It doesn’t mean that it’s right.

Speaking of conflict, do you have good memories of Comórtas Peile na Gaeltachta which, of course, is on at the same time as the football championship?

I have fond memories of all the Comórtais I partook in – from the first one in the parish of Cnoc in Indreabhán in 1992 to my last one in Spiddal in 2006. With the last few years, from 2017 on, I have been on the sideline with Cumann Caide na Gaeltachta at the Comórtas Peile and I love the social aspect of it now. When I was playing in the competition, I felt as though I was on loan from the county team and maybe I lost something from the experience for that reason.

Although you have now hung up your boots (or so I believe), you have other responsibilities in the local club, ypu have different responsibilites in the local club, An Ghaeltacht, where you have been chairperson for the last number of years. Tell us why a club like this is important to the community.

I have been chairperson since 2020 but going back as far as 2005 I have been the Secretary, the PRO, the Insurance Officer among others. I am a selector on the senior and junior panels as well. The club gives the community an opportunity to present themselves as a community through their football teams. It is a pastime for young people but it is a social link for other groups. Our motto is; Sprid, Croí, Caid, Teanga’, the four corner stones of our club and the four traits that we would like to embody as a club. We are only carrying on things that were passed on from generation to generation and hoping to add to that on our journey.

Who was the best player you played against?

There were so many but if I had to give a short answer I would say Maurice Fitzgerald was the best teammate I had and Darren Fay from County Meath was the best marker I ever had.

Now that you have a family, are they into football or is that a stupid question to ask?

I have four daughters and even though they played a lot of football at one point in their lives, only one of them, the youngest who is thirteen years old, is still playing. They are very interested in the game and they follow An Ghaeltacht and Kerry but they don’t remember me playing at all.

In your work life, you are a regional managar in Raidió na Gaeltachta  in BallyDavid, what are your main responsibilities there?

I have an awful lot of responsibilites in this role. I have to make rosters for the team, editing and producing, dealing with Gaeltacht communities in Kerry, Cork and Waterfod, understanding bureaucracy, dissecting documents, setting the schedule, keeping an eye on the standard of jounralism and or Irish, creating and strenghtening links with the community, arranging resources, solving technical problems and human resources, administrating money broadcasting and more.