Paddy McKenna remains an influential figure for Kildare hurlers. Photo by Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile
By Paul Keane
If Paddy McKenna gets his hands on the Christy Ring Cup at Croke Park on Sunday afternoon, chances are that Paul Dermody will be one of the first to congratulate him.
For over half of his life, Kildare captain McKenna has been closely aligned with Dermody. From teacher-student, to rivals for the same number one jersey with Kildare to simply being friends, their relationship has endured and evolved for over 15 years now.
Dermody is the former Kildare goalkeeper who played, and scored a crucial goal from a penalty, when the county won its first Ring Cup final in 2014. McKenna was his deputy. The previous year, a teenage McKenna made his inter-county senior debut when he was still a Leaving Cert student and Dermody, the man he was seeking to replace, just happened to be his English teacher.
"I was in sixth year, he was teaching me English, Leaving Cert English, and we were going training together," smiled McKenna, now 29. "There were two of us, myself and Sean Christiansen, who is still on the panel as well, we were both involved when we were in sixth year. It was mad, a mad couple of months.
"He (Dermody) actually got injured at the start of that first season that I was there. There were three games in the Kehoe Cup and I got the three of them in goals and the first two rounds of the league. We played Laois the first day, so that was my league debut, that was 2013. We played Wicklow as well in a league game in Croke Park as a curtain raiser for a Kildare/Dublin football game. I was playing that day and it was my first day out on the field in Croke Park."
Dermody resumed in goals when he was fit that season but by 2018, McKenna was the undisputed number one.
"That was his final season, 2018, and in the last minute or two Paul actually came on in the Ring final that year, he came on for me, a nice changing of the guard type of moment," said McKenna.
You won't find too many teachers and students these days playing inter-county hurling together. And it's even less likely that they'll be two goalkeepers fighting for the same jersey but that was McKenna's intriguing apprenticeship.
"My English grades dropped considerably when I was starting out alright," he smiled. "Ah no, it was great. To be fair, we've always had a good healthy relationship, myself and Paul. We're good friends and only last week we met up for a 'keeper session. A few other 'keepers that he's training this year met up as well. It's great, there's constant communication and it's great to have someone that you can just pick up the phone to."
Kildare won the Ring Cup for the third time in 2020. McKenna missed that one due to illness but was back playing when they won it for a record fourth time in 2022.
No other county has won it four times and if they repeat their group stage win over Derry this weekend, they'll be well out in front with five titles. But is that necessarily a good thing? Would he have preferred to be playing regularly in the Joe McDonagh Cup competition all along?
"You'd like to be progressing," shrugged the Clane man. "The first two that we won, it was back when the Christy Ring was the second tier and you had a promotion/relegation play-off the week after, to see who would get into the Leinster championship. After the 2014 win, we played Westmeath the following Saturday, lost that. In 2018, after winning, we played Antrim, lost that.
"The 2020 win was the first year we were actually promoted up to the Joe McDonagh. We had a year of that then, it was hampered a bit with Covid. Two groups of three, we were in with Carlow and Westmeath so it wasn't an easy start.
"We got relegated from that, went back up then again last year, 2023. So it's been a bit yo-yo. We just need to figure it out ourselves, how we can pick it up for the Joe McDonagh after the league. It's the Championship for a reason and that comes down to us upping our game."
Brian Byrne, the dual star who captained Kildare to their last two Ring titles, opted to play for the Kildare footballers this year. So the first man in a Lilywhite jersey to lift the cup on Sunday, if they beat Derry, will be McKenna.
"I'd been vice captain under Brian the past couple of years so it's kind of just a step up from that," said McKenna. "It's been great to do it."
McKenna could be busy on Sunday because Derry scored six goals in their last two group games, hitting Sligo for 4-30 last Saturday week. McKenna will draw on his vast experience, not just from all the finals he's featured in but from the expert mentoring he's received over the years. Two former managers, David Herity and Joe Quaid, were top inter-county goalkeepers themselves while his relationship with Dermody has been priceless.
"It's just a position I was always drawn to, even in football or soccer, I always ended up in goals," said McKenna. "It must be in my blood somewhere."
