Paul Geaney confirmed as Kerry football captain for 2026

ANNUS MIRABILIS: Dingle captain Paul Geaney celebrate with the Andy Merrigan Cup in Croke Park. He has now been confirmed as Kerry captain in 2026. Pic: Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile

NO one's quite sure how Paul Geaney expects to top 2025, but he's going to give it a go - this time as captain of Kerry.

The Dingle All-Ireland winning skipper was formally handed the county armband Tuesday night via ratification at a Kerry County Board meeting. 

Geaney (35), who capped an incredible year of club and county success with Dingle last Sunday at Croke Park is the first player from the club to captain Kerry since Bill Casey in 1949 - Casey's nephew Brian Mullins won four All-Irelands in the 70s and 80s with Dublin. 

Tom ‘Gega’ O’Connor (a relative of the Geaney’s) and the great Paddy Bawn Brosnan were the only other Dingle club men to captain the Kerry senior team.

While the custom of handing the Kerry captaincy to the county champions remains, the practice of naming a vice-captain has been discontinued in the Kingdom and it will be Jack O’Connor and his management who nominate a skipper in Geaney's absence on a match by match basis.

Paul Geaney captained the Kerry minor team in 2008 and the Kerry U21s for two years before Jack O’Connor drafted him into the Kerry senior panel in 2011. He had made his break through in 2014, and goaled for the Kingdom in their All-Ireland final win over Donegal.

It may be some time yet, however, before he wears the armband as Geaney and his Dingle inter-county colleagues are heading into some down time after their Club Championship heroics.

"I broke my scapula against Cork in the summer and then just as I was recovering, I was running and hurt my calf - that basically kept me out post the inter-county Championship, it was something you couldn't play away with it,” he explained.

"I’m going to be taking a rest anyway, and get the body right. It'll be a case of take a rest and then start pre-season then. So I'll be starting a block of pre-season again after a two or three-week rest.":

Kerry Board delegates also ratified Abbeydorney's James O’Connor as Kerry hurling captain. 

Crotta's Jerome O’Sullivan is the Kerry U20 hurling manager with a backroom team of Colm O’Brien, John Fitzgerald, Joe Walsh, Liam O’Connor and Kevin O’Sullivan.