Rivalry a way of life in border village

ONE night some 43 years ago a delegation was ushered into a meeting of the Kerry County GAA Board in Tralee.

The visitors had travelled 35km from Ballydesmond, a parish spliced by the infant River Blackwater, which forms a natural county boundary along the upland parts of Cork and Kerry.

The group had discussed the possibility of forming a GAA club in the parish, but the Kerry board would have to give its blessing for those who resided on their side of the river to play with Ballydesmond in the Duhallow division in Cork.