Kiskeam's Daire Murphy on the joy of winning an All-Ireland medal this year

KISKEAM haven’t had much to shout about so far this season, except for one player on the team, who has won an All-Ireland medal.

The Duhallow club suffered relegation from the McCarthy Insurance Group Division 2 football league, which was their second successive demotion. But they know it’s all about the championship and with players returning, they could be a different kettle of fish when the real stuff gets going in a months’ time.

Despite the lack of wins on the pitch for Kiskeam in 2024, wing-back Daire Murphy enjoyed All-Ireland glory after helping Tralee based TLI Group win the Inter-Firm All-Ireland junior football title a couple of months ago.

This season marked the return of the popular Inter-Firm competition since Covid-19 and it proved to be a wonderful success as Murphy explains.

“Last October/November time, one of the lads who I would be good friends with, was told that Inter-Firm was coming back,” he said.

“There are around 800 people working in TLI Group where I work, so I thought we would surely get 15 players together. I contacted a few people and there was great interest. We had 50 lads in the WhatsApp group. We got it up and running and we played four group games first of all.

“We finished fourth and then we lost the Kerry final but we still qualified for the All-Ireland series. It was another opportunity for silverware and we played the Limerick Guards in the semi-final and won that handy enough. We faced Alexion Pharma of Roscommon in the final and won by a point.

“We had a good couple of days celebrating but the few months of the season that we did have was just amazing. It bonded us together and we all improved as footballers. It was a great experience. It’s an excellent way to keep up the fitness during the winter.” 

Murphy would highly recommend Inter-Firm. It was his first taste of it. After all, it was a great success when it was on the go before Covid-19.

“Anyone that is in a company that is willing to put in an Inter-Firm team, should play,” the Kiskeam player says.

“It’s a good way to get to know lads that you mightn’t know all that well and just keep the body ticking over the winter really. It’s a very good standard of football. You would have some great club players playing and former inter-county players. Former Kerry footballer Micheál Burns was playing and I had the task of picking him up in a game and it was tough going.

“You have very good club players playing in the competition and it’s an experience players should try if they are in a position to do so. It’s a nice distraction.” 

The conversation eventually turns to Kiskeam and while the league results have been very disappointing overall as mentioned at the start, that will all be forgotten about if they have a solid championship campaign in the senior A football grade. It won’t be easy though with Cill na Martra, Carrigaline and Béal Átha’n Ghaorthaidh in their group.

“The results didn’t go our way in the league, we did play well in patches,” Murphy said.

“It’s only the league, it’s not the end of the world. We are focusing on the championship now. We have parked the league behind us and it’s all about looking forward.

“We just need to keep training hard over the next few weeks. The senior A football championship is probably the most competitive in Cork so every team needs to be at their best by the end of July. It’s a tough grade, we know that we need everyone that we have available. We have Cill na Martra first up and that’s all we are worried about right now.”