The Kerryman (South Kerry Edition)
‘TRUE BLUE’ HOPING FOR A WIN BEFORE SAYING FAREWELL
IT could be said my conversation with Marcus Howlett first started way back in September 22, 1985, when I met him – all decked out in blue-andnavy – walking along Jones’s Road just hours before the All-Ireland final between Dublin and Kerry.
And just like that famous rivalry, our discussions about football have continued strong ever since.
Marcus is well known for his contribution to the sport of running in Kerry and he has been instrumental in making marathons one of the fastest growing sporting events in Tralee.
Marcus has been living here since 2009 and for the past few years has lectured at IT Tralee. But while you can take the man out of Dublin, you can’t take Dublin out of the man and Marcus is to leave Tralee this October and head back to his beloved capital.
Although born in Dublin, Marcus has strong Kerry connections as his mom hails from Railway Terrace in Tralee and it was here during the 1970s that Marcus first encountered the dual forces of Kerry and Dublin tradition tugging at his loyalties.
However, the Kerry side never stood a chance once Marcus experienced the tumultuous passion of Heffo’s Army and the clamour of Hill 16 during his first All-Ireland Final in 1976.
“Dad is a Dublin man and my mom coming up from Kerry would have taken All-Ireland’s for granted so you can imagine after 1976 there was a lot of tension in my house every September.
“My grandfather was a train driver and I still remember watching the 1977 semi-final against Kerry in his kitchen in Railway Terrace on a black and white TV. He told me I was coming straight back to Dublin with him on the next train and not to be coming down here cheering for Dublin and half my family from Kerry,” Marcus recalls.
There’s never been a better time for a Dub to live in Kerry given how the pendulum has swung in recent years. But Marcus admits to growing up in a time when hope, and not expectancy, was the dominant emotion ahead of Kerry v Dublin encounters.
And while the tide has certainly turned in Dublin’s favour of late, memory has managed to entrench no shortage of caution in Marcus’s mind ahead of Sunday’s semi-final.
“Listen, I’m from a generation that will never take Kerry for granted. My brother’s kids are 12 or 13-years-old now and losing to Kerry is something they‘ve never known and there’s a whole generation growing up in Dublin with no recollection of having lost to Kerry and have no fear of Kerry. But as a friend of mine back home said recently, ‘Kerry are Kerry’.” And as for Sunday’s contest? “Look, every game between these two teams in the last few years has come down to the last 10 minutes and it’s going to be close again,” he says.
“The way this Dublin team play, they are as fresh in the last 10 minutes as they are in the first 10 and that’s the worry for Kerry.
“But if this Dublin team play to their potential, they’ll be hard to beat. But as we’ve seen in the past, Kerry versus Dublin games can take on a life of their own.”
Marcus will be missed by many people in Tralee once he leaves in October; especially by those who took up running thanks to his encouragement and effort to get the sport up and running in a way it never had been prior to his arrival.
But there’s one place you’ ll always be guaranteed to bump into Marcus Howlett and that’s Jones’s Road on a late September afternoon - all going well.