Good article on Tim Kennelly R.I.P.

omahony99

Listowel hurts for its hero, The Horse - Billy Keane, Irish Independent, Dec 10th


TUESDAY 3pm. I was driving out to Beale strand for a clear-the-head stroll when I saw the ambulance outside Timmy Kennelly's house.

"He's gone isn't he?" I asked Brian O'Brien, our teacher. Brian couldn't answer but his face told all. He just couldn't say the words. Tim 'The Horse' Kennelly, the unstoppable, unblockable, unrockable horse was felled by a massive heart attack.

September 1978. The Horse was a giant sea rock between the Dublin storm and the Kerry goal. The water seemed to break up around him and spill away into waves as harmless as a puppy licking your toes. We won. I ran onto the pitch. I was the second to get to him; Hanahoe was the first. Embrace. The happiness in his face.

We often had rows but we were always close. Backed each other up. When I started out playing senior I was of an age when I wouldn't be allowed into a picture with French kissing in it. Tim was centre-back, I was his domestique at left-half. He warned me to get rid of the ball quickly.

Timmy knew I was so light that if I took a breath of helium I would have been swept away to somewhere over the rainbow. Bang. Down I went like a sack of feathers.

The man who shouldered me hit the deck seconds afterwards. The Horse came in and blew him away as easily as a small boy blowing seeds from a dandelion. It was fair hit though, shoulder to shoulder, for that was The Horse's way.

Tuesday 4pm. There was a traffic jam building outside the house on the Ballylongford Road. The ambulance pulled out as Tim's son Noel arrived. It was sad to see a big, strong lad so utterly devastated. He was as polite as ever. Hugged and kissed before he went in to see his father. His sister Joanne, a lovely gentle girl, found her Dad. Noel was very nice to her; he has the gentle way of his mother.

September 2000. Noel is the first of the Golden Age offspring to win a senior All-Ireland. Tim is in tears. There is no greater honour for a Kerry father. P Ó Sé hops a ball. "Timmy, you're throwing great pups." I phoned Páidí just after Noel came in. "I have bad news, very bad," I told him. The phone went dead. The hardest man who ever laced a boot was devastated to the point of speechlessness.

Timmy and P Ó just loved each other's company. They told each other outrageous yarns and pretended to believe them. Jimmy Deenihan was next to be told.

1987. The count centre in the Ashe Memorial Hall in Tralee. Deenihan heads the poll and is elected to the Dáil for the first time. The Horse wore out several pairs of shoes canvassing for his old team-mate. Deenihan is carried shoulder high but the man underneath him is buckling. The Horse takes over.

"I've been carrying you all my life, Greek," he says to Deenihan. Deenihan looks down and says "That's what horses are for."

Tuesday 4pm. The family were unable to contact Tim's wife, Nuala. She drove past Pat Whelan's shop in William Street in Listowel. A big wave and a smile for Pat. Her son Noel and Pat's son Maurice starred in the Emmets' total football win over Ballylongford last Sunday. Pat knew, but there was nothing he could do.

Nuala always backed Timmy 100 per cent, on and off the field. Timmy and herself were mad about each other and very seldom mad with each other. Nuala worked long hours when they owned a pub and still managed to raise three lovely kids.

October '05. Bonfires blazed even though Kerry lost. Tadhg was home as a hero. The first Irishman to win a Grand Final. Tadhg stood up beside his Dad on the back of Galvin's beer lorry. Tim was so proud. Tadhg, a gas man, was slagging with his pals as ever. "We should have brought Timmy down to The Square in a horse box but he picked a beer lorry."

Tuesday again. Tadhg would have to be told before the papers got to him. It had to be Noel. The two boys are very close and Noel said he couldn't do it. But he was bred to be brave, on and off the field.

Noel woke his brother in what was the middle of the night in Australia. Tadhg immediately set out to see his Dad.

The sadness and loneliness of right now. Belfast mourned George and we feel just the same way about Tim. Lovely Listowel is a town in shock. There is no chirping in the voices of the women at their shopping, just hushed whispers. Men feel our back-up is gone. Everyone loved Timmy but Timmy was not perfect and he knew he was not perfect and there were times when that realisation upset him.

For sure and certain, though, Tim Kennelly was a good man and a compassionate man who had a word for everyone and never jangled his All-Ireland medals around in his pockets.

He was a man who hated to see anyone down and he was at his best when help was needed. And that assistance was always offered before it was asked for.

It was, I suppose, appropriate his heart gave out in the finish because he was all heart. That was the essence of the man but there was no way the heart of a lion could be sustained by the body of a man, even a man called The Horse.

Tim will go for his last drive with his great pal Eamonn O'Carroll, affectionately known as Ned the Dead. His coffin will be togged out in the green and gold of Kerry and the black and gold of the Emmets.

But every man, woman and child in North Kerry will drape his casket with their love for the Pegasus, the flying horse, that was Tim Kennelly.

The final whistle will sound around 12.30 today. You might stop at whatever you are doing around then and say a little prayer for Tim and his family. And for all of us who were lucky enough to know him.

mchurl

R.i.p

SexeeAussie

That was totally gut wrenching
RIP Tim, your son Tadhg has and will continue to do you very proud.