Mick O'Connell remembers a fellow blueblood in the green and gold

Mick O'Connell is seven months Mick O’Dwyer’s junior. The South Kerry men won all four of their All-Ireland senior titles together

ICONS: Mick O'Connell and Mick O'Dwyer and in a Kerry team photograph from the 1950s. Pic: MacMonagle archive

From one great to another, Mick O’Connell has paid his respects to his contemporary, divisional and county team-mate Mick O’Dwyer.

Seven months O’Dwyer’s junior, the South Kerry men won all four of their All-Ireland senior titles together – 1959, ’62, ’69 and ’70 – as well as 12 Munster championships. They were also along one another for three senior county championships with the division in the mid-1950s.

“I was lucky that we came from the same area,” spoke O’Connell from his Valentia home on Thursday afternoon. “We travelled together for years and years and we formed a friendship being from a different part of Kerry.

“I would know him and his people and he would know me and my people. That kind of bond, apart from the sporting side, was very special and I am sad now to hear of his passing.” 

O’Connell prefers to speak of O’Dwyer the footballer, the man he knew best. “All the young people telling you they met him – I played with him from 1955 to 1972. We played together. We didn’t go counting up titles. In our times, we were selected for a match and there was no gatherings. Sometimes, we mightn’t meet until the day of a match and that was it.

“In bygone days, it was true blue people who got together and played sport. There was no talk of managers or anything like that aping the soccer thing, a professional game. It was true blue amateurism in our time.

“It was the sport of our time. If you didn’t like it, you wouldn’t play it. You talk about football nowadays, you talk about a different game altogether. I called what we played Gaelic, there was no handball. He was a good fielder and a good kicker and that was it.

“Talk about comparing the past and the present, you’re talking about two different games. There was a goal scored for Kerry in the game last Sunday, the fella handed the ball in. To me, that’s handball. I would class our game as football, of the foot.” 

Born on June 9 1936, O’Dwyer made his first appearance for Kerry as a minor in 1954, a year before O’Connell. He graduated to junior level a couple of years later before making his senior debut in 1957, the first Waterville man to do so.

Between then and his final senior game for his county in 1972, O’Dwyer played 48 senior championship games, although he stepped away from the inter-county game in 1966 and ’67 due to ankle injuries. In 1964, he returned from two broken legs to line out in the All-Ireland semi-final and final. Five years later, he was voted footballer of the year.

He lined out in 93 league games for the Kingdom, winning seven Division 1 honours.

O’Dwyer filled a number of roles for Kerry, moving from wing-back in his early years to corner-forward towards the end of his inter-county career. With Waterville, O’Dwyer claimed eight South Kerry championships.

Approached by county chairman Gerald McKenna to manage Kerry at the end of 1974 after leading Waterville to three consecutive senior county finals, he took over the county’s seniors and U21s and led the latter to three consecutive U21 All-Irelands between 1975 and ’77, losing the ’78 decider to Roscommon.

O’Dwyer’s glorious 15-season career as Kerry senior manager in which he experienced 10 All-Ireland finals began in 1975 and the Sam Maguire Cup was forthcoming that September when they defeated Dublin by seven points.

That treasured piece of silverware returned to Kerry seven more times in O’Dwyer’s reign including four consecutive years between 1978 and ’81, the five-in-a-row famously stopped by Offaly and Seamus Darby’s goal in the ’82 game, a score which O’Dwyer admitted haunted him for several years.

Kerry returned to claim a three-in-a-row between 1984 and ’86 and among O’Dwyer’s other managerial achievements were 11 Munster SFC triumphs and three Division 1 crowns as well as six Railway Cup titles in charge of Munster.

In his second term in charge of Kildare, O’Dwyer in 1998 led the county to a first Leinster senior title in 42 years. They followed it up with an All-Ireland semi-final victory over his native county before they were beaten by Galway in the final, their first All-Ireland showdown since 1935.

Laois were next to experience the Midas touch of the Waterville man as he brought them provincial glory in 2003, the county’s first since 1946. They again reached the Leinster final the following year where they lost to Páidí Ó Sé’s Westmeath.

O’Dwyer also enjoyed a positive five-year spell in Wicklow where they pulled off a number of high-profile All-Ireland qualifier victories and claimed a Tommy Murphy Cup in 2007. In his final inter-county post, he took charge of Clare for the 2013 season.

O’Dwyer, who passed away in Kenmare Community Hospital on Thursday, is predeceased by his first wife Mary Carmel who died in 2012 and son Michael (Haulie) in ’22.

He is survived by his wife Geraldine and sons John, Robbie and Karl. O’Dwyer married Tyrone native Geraldine in January 2023. O’Dwyer’s passing comes less than two months after the death of his former county team-mate Johnny Culloty who was in goal for all four of O’Dwyer’s Celtic Crosses. O’Dwyer succeeded the Legion man as Kerry manager in the mid-1970s.

His funeral will take place in Waterville’s St Finian Church on Saturday morning at 11am, reposing in Fitzgerald’s Funeral home in the town on Friday from 4pm to 8pm before removal to the church at 8.30pm.