The History of cricket in Kerry
It would probably come as something of a surprise to many people that cricket was being played in Tralee as long ago as 1861. The presence of a military barracks at Ballymullen was a significant factor in the creation of a team and the teams in those early days were often composed of military personnel as well prominent individuals from the town including a large proportion of lawyers. It is not clear where the initial games were played, but the Barrack Square at Ballymullen was quickly recognised as an ideal location and there were always plenty of hands available to prepare the playing surface.
The military band was also on hand to provide the entertainment.
It might be difficult to put forward an argument against the contention that the arrival of the rail tracks to the town was not a significant factor in the emergence of a cricket club. The first train pulled into Tralee Station in July 1859, connecting Tralee and Killarney but many of the clubs named below still relied on coach travel to get to and from games.
Within a short space of time, cricket clubs began to crop up all over the country. Several landlords became involved in organising teams, many of them involving regular visitors to Ireland and latter 30 years of the 19th. century, three from Tralee (Tralee Commercial, Tralee Drapers, [1872], and Cloghers (1882], Valentia [1872], later Anglo-American and later again Iveragh [1883], Kenmare Bostoons [1872], Killarney [1872], Waterville (Cable Station) [1873], Cahersiveen [1874], Kilcolman (Milltown) [1873], Listowel [1874], Balyheigue [1874], Ardfert, later Brandon [1875], Killelton (Ballylongford) [1875], Tarbert (later Riverview) [1875], Abbeyfeale [1875], Sneem [1875].
The army at the barracks and RIC also fielded their own teams while in the later years of the century, both St. Brendans College, Killarney and St. Michaels College, Listowel, played cricket.
Side bets, not insignificant ones, on games involving Cahersiveen and Waterville were apparent and among those who played for Valentia were Alfred Graves and his sons Arnold P. who played County Championship cricket for Somerset and Robert, after whom the disease is named.
The grandfather of the famous Australian wicketkeeper of the 1870s and ‘80s, John McCarthy Blackham’s was also living in Tralee at that time. John McCarthy was the former owner of Bunnow Mills in Camp in west Kerry and he had lived in Adelaide for some years before settling in Kerry.
In the early 1880, the club in Tralee, now having adopted the title the County Kerry Amateur Athletic and Cricket Club (which embraced green and gold as the club colours) embarked on an ambitious proposal to construct a sportsfield in Boherbee. The principal feature of this ground was an athletics track with a playing field in the centre which would accommodate all sports. The local rugby club was enthusiastic about this venture but the promoters were particularly drawn to athletics as this particular activity was drawing large attendances across the country and was seen as being capable of providing financial support for all sporting bodies using the facilities as well as the stakeholders.
The Sportsfield opened on Friday, June 17, 1885 but was immediately pitched into a challenge to survive when Michael Cusack, the driving force behind the formation of the Gaelic Athletic Association, picked Tralee as the venue for his first battle with the organising body of athletic sports in Ireland. The Kerry branch of the GAA had only been established the month before the meet but now Cusack arrived in the Kingdom to supervise a series of athletics under GAA rules. The big difference was that, whilst there was a charge at the gate at The Sportsfield, the rival meeting offered free admission.
The stadium in Boherbee never really recovered from this setback and in the early 1900s, there was a curious situation that GAA games, rugby and cricket were all being played at the ground. The County Board of the GAA ultimately bought the ground, and since rugby was an activity covered by ‘The Ban’, it was excluded from the opportunity to have the use of the pitch.
Cricket, however, was not a ‘banned’ sport and games continued to take place at The Sportsfield even after the GAA had taken control. But in any event, playing cricket on a pitch that had recently been underfoot of players of other codes with large boots with studs was something rather more that problematic and was not a satisfactory arrangement.
County Kerry became a somewhat nomadic club over the subsequent years, the racecourse at Ballybeggan becoming the host for the club for a period.
A prominent cricket player to emerge over the turn of the 19th. and 20th. centuries was William ‘Bill’ O’Gorman, a brother of the twins who won Kerry’s first All Ireland Football title in 1905 (the 1903 final). Bill was a fine bowler and played in Cheshire as a club professional, then returned to become the pro. at the Leinster club in Dublin.
The bat and ball game recovered and experienced a bit of a revival in the late 1920s when the Bourn Vincent family, the American owner of the Muckross Estate in Killarney, presented a County Championship trophy for the Kerry clubs and County Kerry continued playing until the late 1940s when the game died out, apparently permanently in the town and the county.
Revival
Cricket had been in abeyance for 40 years or more when a discussion took place among members of Tralee Rugby Club at Bailys Corner pub in 1988. Eric Lye canvassed a number of people about setting up a cricket club and to the surprise of many, he received a number of responses from people who indicated that they were favourable towards this.
A member of Limerick CC, Eric moved swiftly or organise a game against Limerick which took place on the first pitch at the rugby club on June 25 that year and after a handful more ‘taverners’ games, the members decided to get serious and entered the Munster Minor League and Cup and Junior Cup for the 1989 season The team surprised everyone by accomplishing Minor League and Cup double and emboldened by this, the members decided to move up to the Junior League, fielding a second side at Minor. The initial foray to the tougher competition were difficult but having battled through to the Junior Cup final 1992, opted to have a tilt at the Senior Cup in that season too.
In 1993, the Junior Cup was captured while the team also won the Munster Senior Shield (for first round eliminées of the Senior Cup). For a while, there was a second club in the county with the emergence of Listowel. Several of that team’s players also enjoyed junior and senior cricket with County Kerry. A move up to the Senior League proved a step too far at this point but after winning the Junior League in 2000, the side stepped up again briefly before dropping back and there were several difficult years subsequently.
In the opening round of what concluded in County Kerry’s first triumph in the Munster Junior Cup in 1993, another unusual achievement occurred. The team was drawn against Waterford at the ground that the Kerry club had developed adjoining the rugby club in Clahane. It must be conceded that the west/east boundaries were tighter than at other grounds due to the position of the boundary ditches but the course of the game was dictated when New Zealander Justin Doolin scored 36 runs from a single over, boxing all six deliveries for sixes. It would have to be said that most of these strokes would have cleared the boundaries at any other ground as well, however.
Denis Moylan, a former captain of County Kerry was elected President of the Munster Cricket for the 1993 and ’94 seasons.
A Division III (Minor) League title in 2008 was a fleeting success but the move to the pitch at Tralee Sports Complex in Oakpark eventually brought better times to the club’s fortunes. In particular, a number of Asian guys in the county were enticed to the club and several important contributors such as the Ireland A international Yaqub Ali, Kashif Khan and Khuram Iqbal became established players. A T/20 competition amongst the club members was contested for a number of seasons.
In 2014 the Munster Division II title was captured while the club also captured a third Minor Cup but the somewhat abrupt disturbance of the club to facilitate the change of the site to a playing ground for Gaelscoil Chiarraí – a project which was only undertaken several years later – sharpened the desire for a permanent home for County Kerry once more and Dave Ramsay entered negotiations with James McGrath regarding his dream of playing cricket by the shore at the Spa.
After two years of intense, transformative work, the transformed ground was ready.
On Sunday, June 22, 2016, County Kerry entertained Midleton in a Muster Premier Division League game and the club had finally found itself a home. For a spell too, there were again two clubs in the county, both playing at The Spa, with some members of North Kerry CC also performing up along the ranks for County Kerry. After the club disbanded again, a number of the players continue to play with what was now the sole representative in the county in the league and cup competitions.
The MCC accepted an invitation to play a game at the venue to mark the opening of the ground and in 2024, the club arrived to play at the Spa for the fifth time.
The opening of the Oyster Oval after significant engineering and groundwork conducted by the contractors Allman Bros. from Banemore, Listowel, marked the conclusion of a project that had been in David Ramsay’s mind for a considerable length of time. He had identified a vision of a cricket pitch by the seashore in the Spa at a point when the club was searching for somewhere to establish a permanent home. He remained convinced that this field, an ugly swamp which local, terrified parents had been warning their children to stay out of would make a perfect venue for cricket.
The club was also assisted by significant funding for the project through the National Lottery’s Sports Capital Programme and remains very thankful to everybody who assisted in enabling the transformation to take place.
Today, photographs of cricket being played here have appeared on computer devices all over the world, entirely justifying David’s vision in persisting in pushing for his vision to become a reality.
The 2018 season was a particularly significant one for the club, County Kerry defeating Harlequins in the final to win the Munster Senior Cup and the second team captured a third Munster Junior Cup while the advent of the bad weather at the tail-end of the 2023 season meant that the Munster Senior Cup was shared between County Kerry and Cork County for the season.
There was another significant moment for the club on the August bank holiday in 2022 when the first first women’s XI took the field to play Pembroke in two games with the team being led by Gemma Lougheed bringing a large attendance to the pitch on the shores of Tralee Bay.
