Champion contender

THIS is the time of the year when your Kerry friends, many of them beloved cousins, sidle up to your weak shoulder, head bowed but eyes cross-haired on everything that moves, feet flicking at some imagined football.

The cloud over them is almost palpable, the foreboding nearly contagious.

“Ah, shure don’t mind the league,” is the predictable rabhcán Ciarraí.