Border crossings: The stars who swapped Cork and Kerry

Former Kerry captain and retired garda Jas Murphy — who passed away last month — won a Cork county medal in 1950 before captaining the Kerry team to All-Ireland glory in 1953. Picture: Eddie O’Hare

Cork face Kerry in Saturday's McGrath Cup final, with the Leesiders qualifying courtesy of wins over Clare and Waterford.

In doing so, they had a notable inclusion in their ranks. Joe Grimes impressed in the Clonakilty side that made the Cork SFC final last season and has been promoted to county duty. Grimes is a native of Listowel in Co Kerry, however.

This might raise eyebrows among those who see Cork and Kerry as Montagues and Capulets in the normal course of events — bitter rivals on the football field who would begrudge each other the slightest advantage. But going back through the decades, there’s a long history of cross-pollination, particularly when it comes to players coming east from Kerry.

The thesis needs some fine-tuning first. We’re referring here to players who made the switch in their maturity as opposed to those who happened to be born in one county and moved across the border as infants. Otherwise, players as diverse as Kerry goalkeeper Danno Keeffe (born in Fermoy, Cork) and Cork hurler John Quirke (born in Milltown, Kerry) would have to be considered.

The timing of many of the valid instances of dual citizenship, whether temporary or permanent, also seems particularly relevant. From the 1940s until well into the 60s, if a player moved counties for work it was almost taken as a foregone conclusion that his playing allegiance would also have to move.

Car ownership was far from universal, and in this context, a player moving from Cahirsiveen or Dingle to Cork City had little chance of getting back home to play for his club; it was simply out of the question.

Throwing his lot in with the local club was the obvious option, and promotion to the county side sometimes followed.

An obvious case was Jas Murphy, a Kerry garda who played with Cork in 1947 and 1948, including the NFL final of 1948.

Murphy — who passed away last month — was playing with St Nicks from 1945 onwards, but when the Garda football club was founded in Cork, he moved to play with them, winning a Cork county medal in 1950. He duly transferred back to Kerins O’Rahillys in 1953, joined the Kerry senior panel, and was captain of the Kerry team in the All-Ireland final when they beat Armagh that year.

This was a pattern seen in other cases also, including one of Murphy’s team-mates on that 1953 team.

Jim and John Cronin were born in Milltown in Kerry and moved to Cork as teenagers. Their football careers followed similar enough paths — up to a point.

Jim won a Junior Munster Championship with Cork in 1940 before progressing to pick up senior Munster medals in 1943 and 1945, adding an All-Ireland senior medal in 1945.

He collected two more Munster medals, in 1949 and 1952 — and an NFL medal in the latter year — with John, his younger brother, also on the Cork team.

However, John then transferred back to Kerry for 1953, winning an All-Ireland medal in 1953, and another in 1955.

James 'Jas' Murphy leading out Kery as captain before the All-Ireland final win over Armagh in Croke Park in 1953

That NFL-winning side Cork fielded in 1952 saw yet another player swap red and white for green and gold: Tom Moriarty of Castleisland won a junior All-Ireland medal in 1951, an NFL medal and Munster medal in 1952 — all with Cork — before throwing his lot in with Kerry and collecting an All-Ireland senior medal in 1955.

Eric Ryan played minor for Kerry before transferring to Cork, lining out at midfield for the Rebels in their All-Ireland final defeat of 1957.

The 50s also saw intercounty transfers which would have ramifications not just for Cork and Kerry, but for international rugby. When Gerald Lenihan moved from his native Listowel to work in Cork, he played with St Nicks, winning a county SFC medal in 1954. The year beforehand, however, he collected an All-Ireland JFC medal with Cork — his son Donal would captain the Irish rugby team and play for the Lions.

Moving into the 60s, the traffic across the border died off somewhat, but there were still cases such as Tom Prendergast, who lined out with Cork in the league in the mid-60s before transferring back to Kerry to win All-Ireland medals in 1969 and 1972. Kevin Dillon, born in Duagh, played with Cork in their defeat at the hands of Meath in the 1967 All-Ireland final.

Grimes, therefore, is part of a long tradition, one which still had some life in it, even when Kerry were arguably at their peak.

Star Cork forward Paul McGrath recalled a surprise approach from Kerry’s then-manager while playing Sigerson Cup for UCC in the mid-80s. Disappointed not to make the Cork minors, McGrath was making a name for himself in third-level football.

“Mick O’Dwyer was the [UCC] trainer,” McGrath told the Echo some years ago.

“We used to do 32 laps for an hour as our ‘pre-season’. Then when we’d go down to the Farm — you’d be training on a pitch with water up to your ankles when it rained.

“After Christmas I’d been training along and going grand, holding my own. Micko came up to me — this is spring 1985 and Kerry are All-Ireland champions — and said: ‘Your mother is from Kerry, you’d never come down training with us?’.

“I thought this was a wind-up, like. I said: ‘Sure how would I get down to Kerry for training?’ Ger Lynch was working at the time in Cork so Micko suggested I could go down with him! I still thought it was mad.

“Word started getting out, though, so all of a sudden I was getting trials for the Cork U21s, and I couldn’t get on the minor panel the year before. So really it all took off from there.”

In time, McGrath would become one of the key attackers on the Cork side that collected two All-Ireland SFC titles in 1988 and 1990.

Cork and Kerry — helping each other out as usual.