The ingenious thing about Kerry football teams is not that they have won 34 All-Ireland titles but that they have done so without provoking national hatred and envy.
When it comes to the matter of Gaelic football, Kerry are undoubtedly the landlords, the occupants of the Big House, and we, the peasants, adore them for it.
Kerry have never flaunted their wealth. If the Lord above wanted to preserve a blueprint of the quintessential Kerry face, he would surely choose the image of Páidí Ó Sé in full, glorious grimace.
Páidí is often described as a rogue, and when he walked in the green-and-pale-gold stripes around Croke Park during the All-Ireland parade in the dozens of finals in which he played, there was a touch of Saturday Night Fever about the strut.
But for all the glinting mischief, Páidí was like a shaman when it came to superstitions and lucky charms. He was apt to believe there were endless influences floating around the cosmos that could affect the performance of Kerry on the football field, and he did his best to ward them off.
When he was happy, Páidí could look ecstatic, but mostly, during his days as a fiery wing back and later as the silver-bullet-headed manager, he looked faraway and pensive, as if examining storm clouds that might or might not be about to rush upon him.
That look of intense foreboding is the everlasting Kerry football expression. History dictates that in the All-Ireland football championship matters will probably turn out all right. But Kerry folks have a default setting that keeps them in tune to the things that may go wrong.
That is why tomorrow's fandango with Dublin is the real deal down in Kingdom country. The theory that Dublin versus Kerry is the greatest rivalry in Gaelic football has been undermined by two bothersome realities: the counties rarely meet in the championship; and when they do, Kerry tend to win.
Acknowledging that Kerry have had the upper hand in the duel for quite some time now, big Bomber Liston grinned on television the other night as he noted the last time Dublin won the fixture was when Elvis was alive (for an instant we wondered if an Elvis Ferris or an Elvis Brosnan had lined out for the county).
But Bomber was talking about Presley, the handsomest man of the 20th century apart from Maurice Fitzgerald and the most distinctive voice in the world except when he happened to be in the same room as Pat Spillane. But Bomber's cheeky quip is as close as you will ever get to schadenfreude from a Kerry man.
Out of caution and respect, the Kerry people will turn out in numbers for tomorrow's semi-final. It is an early start for them. Traditionally, the Rose of Tralee served to remind Kerry folk to check the paper to see which county the boys would be dispatching in the semi-final.
September is generally the month for the annual Kerry exodus to the capital. But it is as easy to get the Christmas shopping done in late August as in September. Kerry folks have the championship odyssey down to a fine art.
They leave behind the beautiful lakes, misty mountains and happy towns early in the morning, stop for sandwiches in Portlaoise and drive on to the capital singing songs about the sheer beauty of Jack O'Shea fielding a ball in Fitzgerald Stadium.
Should they cross the border into Offaly, they fall silent out of respect for 1982. After parking alongside the Royal Canal, they meet friends under the clock at Eason's at four o'clock on Saturday and ask directions to Clery's.
At night, unless there's a John B Keane masterpiece running in the Abbey, they gather in authentic Kingdom pubs. You will find many thousands of them down by the Merchant on the quays, singing dirges about Banna Strand and comely maidens from Glenflesk in their soft, melodious voices and talking about the feats of Paddy Bawn and Tadhgie Lyne and the Horse Kennelly and Maurice Fitz.
To strangers they are welcoming. Kerry people speak at an extraordinary speed,
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im headin to south america on the 1st of june and cumin bk on the 10th of august so we wil have to meet up when u cum to galway on the 17th! xxx
