Remembering Kerry’s fallen hero of 100 years ago

By Cian Murphy

Better known to his teammates as Jack, John Murphy was a flying 22-year-old half back on the Kerry team that reached the All-Ireland final against Kildare 100 years ago this year. In the eyes of many he was man of the match as Kerry came back from the brink to earn a replay.

Tragically he would miss the replay and pass away from illness 11 days later.

Going home in wet clothes after getting a drenching while training in Tralee would be blamed for him suffering pneumonia.

As Jack O’Connor’s Kerry team make their first Championship appearance of 2026 at Croke Park this weekend, it is a chance to remember another Jack and a Kerry team that did much to build the popularity of Gaelic football a century ago.

The late, great Weeshie Fogarty is sorely missed from the airwaves of Kerry and the press boxes of Ireland. An affable, diminutive sage on Kerry football history was an unofficial ambassador for all things related to the Kingdom. His iconic Terrace Talk programme on Radio Kerry was essential listening and his impact lives on with his colleagues continuing the outstanding stats record that can still be found on the terracetalk.com website.

Back in 2012 Weeshie paid a special tribute to Jack Murphy of Ballycarberry and secured permission from relatives to reproduce a letter he had written after the helter skelter drawn game in which he had played such an important role.

A member of the newly formed An Garda Siochána, Jack had won an All-Ireland with Kerry in 1924.

It could be argued that the Kingdom v The Lilywhites was a rivalry that made the GAA, particularly in an Ireland rediscovering normality in the era immediately after the Civil War when the GAA and the Championships captured the imagination of the public and crowds flocked like never before to see the games and the players.

“It would have been the biggest rivalry in the first 30 years of the century,” is how Dr Richard McElligott describes the significance of the clashes between Kerry and Kildare. He is the author of the acclaimed Forging a Kingdom: The GAA in Kerry 1884-1934.

“You had the tradition and the nostalgia there from 1903 when they met in an All-Ireland final that went to three games and that Kerry eventually won and it was the first time they had won wearing their green and gold jerseys and Kildare were in their Lilywhite shirts.

“They emerge as the two big forces in the country after the Civil War and they already have a history there between them. The introduction of the National Leagues in 1925 means that the public get a league game between them as well as a Championship match and they are important games in terms of establishing the National Leagues as a viable secondary national competition.

“For those meetings in the 20s, the country has started to settle down, the calendar is settling down after the delays to the GAA fixtures caused by the wars. You have Croke Park which has been renovated to be able to host the Tailteann Games in 1924 and to take crowds so, all of these things combine to make Kerry-Kildare games a big attraction,” adds McElligott, an expert on the Civil War era and a lecturer in modern and Irish History in Dundalk IT.

A record crowd of almost 40,000 attended CrokePark for drawn final which looked to be heading Kildare’s way when they led 0-6 to 0-3 in the last quarter – only for Kerry’s Bill Gorman to crash in a late goal that sparked a mass pitch invasion of delirious Kingdom fans.

The Jack Murphy letter home to his sister Nell, reproduced on Terrace Talk, details the excitement:

"We lined out against Kildare at 3:30 before a gathering estimated at over 40,000. It was some crowd indeed. We were really lucky to make it a drawn game as we were outclassed for at least 40 minutes of the game, but the boys make a grand rallying in the last quarter of an hour and equalised. Nevertheless I think we were unlucky in the closing stages in not winning by the smallest of margins. However we will have another day to decide the issue. The crowd went frantic with excitement when we drew level can still picture headgear floating in the air. I met Denny (Jacks Brother) on our way to Barrys and he was scarcely able to speak, you can imagine the excitement that prevailed. We spent a most enjoyable evening in Howth and got back at 2am but did not get to bed till 6 am absolutely fagged out. The replay may take place on the 10th of October and all are looking forward to the keenest of struggles. Which will I am sure will surpass any of the old time encounters with Kildare.”

There were 35,000 fans present for the rematch in early October, with Kerry making no mistake on that occasion, winning 1-4 to 0-4. The victory added to the legend of that Kerry team, a team featuring bitter Civil War enemies such as John Joe Sheehy and Con Brosnan who had famously put differences aside when it came to the good of the Kerry jersey.

Their appearance at the end of the Civil War at Croke Park where they marched out and stood in silent prayer at the spot where Mick Hogan was shot on Bloody Sunday in 1920 was for many seen as a symbolic image that marked the end of that fractious period.

Tragically Jack Murphy was not with them when they clinched their seventh title and the last All-Ireland to return to Kerry before the arrival of the Sam Maguire Cup which Kerry captured for the first time in 1929.

The Kerryman report on the thronged funeral which took place on November 6 listed the messages of sympathy sent from far and wide and include head of the Gardai General Eoin O’Duffy and also the Olympian and Tailteann Games hero Larry Stanley, an All-Ireland winner with his native Kildare and also Dublin and who wrote: “Greatly shocked to hear of the death of Ireland’s best, Jack Murphy.”

Kerry football’s first All-Ireland crown didn’t arrive until 1903. It took two replays to see off Kildare with Kerry starting out wearing green and red shirts before switching to a green and gold combination. After victory in the ’home’ final it was customary to play a ‘final’ against London and Kerry in green and gold defeated a London team captained by a certain Sam Maguire.

The official picture of the 1926 champions is a sight to behold.

Lined out with dignitaries the Kerry team have at their feet the skin of a lion. The message, if controversial, was also blunt. Kerry were the Kingdom and were lords of the football jungle.

The 1926 football championship and Kerry’s role in it is also immortalised in verse. Affectionately known as the Ghost Train these were a special excursion train that moved slowly through the night to travel from Kerry and arrive in Dublin on All-Ireland final day. The phenomenon was captured by Sigerson Clifford who wrote about the 1926 game:

Then the soft grass and the sunshine and the marching of the bands
With the green and gold flag fluttering over all
There's Con Brosnan running swiftly and our Sheehy shooting low
And Larry Stanley jumping skyhigh for the ball.
It put the heart across me when the leather grazed our goal,
And my throat with shouting tattered like a scraw
There was never sweeter music than that final whistle blown,
*And the board said, let me whisper, 'twas a draw.

Loud and long we held the inquest steaming home from Dublin town
And we wrote down who kicked well and who played poor
But John Pete agreed with me that all the luck was with Kildare
And Bob Doyle maintained we'd win the next time sure.
We still chalked up the scoreboard and the chalk was green and gold,
Said the Tailor, white teeth grinning like a shark,
Sure we only took their measure and we'll cut the cloth to scale
When we take the Ghost Train three weeks for Croke Park.*