'It's been irritating' - Geaney on constant questions of inter-county future

MORE TO COME: Paul Geaney's focus is on club football at moment but family life will dictate inter-county future. Pic: David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile

Win or lose in Thurles tomorrow, Dingle’s Monday Club will have a celebratory hue to it as Paul Geaney marks his 33rd birthday.

“Thanks for the reminder” is his dim tone as you mention his forthcoming milestone, one of a few reasons why he’s been peppered about his inter-county future this past while whether it’s been behind the family bar in the town’s Main Street or out and about.

It's been irritating, he says. Geaney may be the elder statesman of the Kerry set-up now, chalking up his 100th senior appearance this past summer, but he started all but one championship game in 2023. Not that he counts it but it was also he who halted Stephen Cluxton’s string of SFC clean sheets at 13.

Family, not age will make up his mind. In Siún, a daughter of the late, great Páidí Ó Sé, he has a wife who is immersed in the game but they are expecting a younger brother or sister for Páidí Óg and little Christina early next year. Home will be busier and home matters most.

“Mentally and physically, I’m perfect and still very hungry but my circumstances are changing a little bit. We’ve a third baby due in January. I was talking to Karl O’Connell (Monaghan’s flying 35-year-old wing-back) recently enough and he’s probably more annoyed than me about the constant questions of ‘are you staying on?’ 

“Most of the time it’s just winter talk but it can be a little bit annoying. I’m among the public day-in, day-out and it’s a long time six months out of inter-county football. I don’t have any intentions of it but I will have to see after Christmas. I had a brief chat with Jack (O’Connor) but we really didn’t talk about it too much. The club has been so consuming there hasn’t been much time to think about anything else.” 

Except the defeat to Dublin. That shadows him and whispers to be avenged. “Losing the All-Ireland last season is painful still. You want to go back and make it for that especially with the team Kerry have.

“We didn’t perform last year anywhere near our standards. We didn’t open up against anyone bar the Louth game but you could question where Louth were in that point of the year. Other than that, we didn’t play full throttle and the question for me is can I be part of that to get it going again.” 

Ten seasons on from his first full senior championship season in 2014, Geaney is a different animal. “I’ve probably mellowed a little bit. I was too demanding a team-mate and not in the best of ways at times during my earlier days. With the club even more so.

“I always appreciated training but even more now, every training session that I am afforded the opportunity to improve and get the best out of myself. I’ve had three different Kerry managers and you’re trying to get in with them to keep your spot and perform for them. I relish those challenges.

“As an inside forward, you’re always marked on how you score but I’ve played different roles for Kerry, pushing out to the half-forward line and to the top of the ‘D’ almost like a false nine and wasn’t scoring as much.

“I’m well aware of how lucky I am with my family now. In 2014, I was waiting around all day just to go training. It was pretty much my life as a student but obviously there is life around it and Páidí has training on Friday evenings and Sunday mornings and I pop up there when I can. I definitely have a different appreciation for football and hopefully with the club too I can get as much out of it as I can and when it’s time to call a halt it’s on my terms but I might not be as lucky as that.” 

It was in that breakthrough Kerry season of his nine years ago that Geaney also lost his mother Christina. Bereavement is something he and Siún, whose father passed away in December 2012, had to come to terms with too early in life. When his fellow forwards, the Clifford brothers, said farewell to Ellen in May on the eve of last May’s Munster final, he could empathise with them.

“We wouldn’t have spoken explicitly about it but we have had conversations in the past about loss and that. My own experience has been a difficult one for me to talk about over the years but I’m starting to open up a bit more about it. It never goes away, you never get over it and there’s no day that doesn’t go by, that you don’t think about the loss or what might have been.

“It was very tough on the lads this year and the timing of it. It’s a tough place to be when you know it’s on the cards. Then you think you’re some way prepared for it but it feels like a sudden death and there’s nothing that can ready you for it. The boys went and played against Clare and were outstanding. It just shows their mental capacity to compartmentalise.” 

Geaney was preparing to make an overnight trip to face Mayo in a league game in early March 2014 when he was advised to hang back as Christina’s health faded. “Selfishly, I was saying to myself, ‘I could have played that game’ not knowing what was to happen that Sunday night.” That as UCC’s winning captain he was able to bring the Sigerson Cup to her in hospital is a moment he will forever cherish “knowing Mom wasn’t going to see me in Croke Park again or win an All-Ireland”.

It was in Christina’s memory that he doubled down on his commitment to Kerry that season, winning a Celtic Cross and scoring Kerry’s first goal in the final win over Donegal. 

“It drove me on for six or seven months but after the All-Ireland final I totally crashed. I didn’t stay on the field for the celebrations. I had a tough winter after that. It drove me on to win ’14 and it worked out for me but I had a couple of dark days after that.

“I was young at the time, had a bit to learn and in your early 20s it’s close to being a teenager. You think you know everything and you’re not willing to talk to somebody when you still have a lot to learn. You carry the burden yourself and it took me a while to learn not to and to be able to cope and to grieve. After a while, I was lucky that I came around and was able to do it.” 

As the Cliffords concluded their football year in earnest last Sunday, Geaney knows it’s now that they can begin to grieve. “When the boys came back in, everyone was emotional for them. There was that want to protect them too. The year didn’t go to plan but the lads are plenty young to make up for it. Their mom also got to see them win All-Irelands as well, which gives them great comfort I’m sure.

“Their year finished up last weekend and they will have private time now up to and over Christmas. They probably would have liked to keep going but it’s important to have that time for themselves.” 

For football, the Cliffords passed up on the Kerry team holiday to New York earlier this month. Geaney did too. Other than missing the county championship game against St Brendan’s and last weekend’s West Kerry final win over Annascaul to claim a sixth straight divisional title, Geaney has had just two weekends free of games since the All-Ireland final. He could do with a rest but the club calls.

“The main thing was I don’t know how many more chances we will get to have a cut at Munster. We only won our second club championship two months ago. It was 2015 before that and it’s very competitive. Other clubs, the likes of Crokes with Gavin White and Tony Brosnan back next year... the scene can change very quickly. When you’re on top, you have to seize the chance.”