POSTED FROM

FINUGE

CO. KERRY · IE

Finuge
Fionnúig

STOP 07 / 07

Fionnúig · Co. Kerry

Bryan MacMahon's hinterland and Paul Galvin's parish, five kilometres west of Listowel.

Finuge is a small crossroads village about five kilometres west of Listowel on the R553, the road out to Lixnaw. A chapel, a pub, a national school, a GAA pitch, a Teach Siamsa, a few houses around the cross and a few more strung along the road. The river Feale runs south of the village, and a bridge — the Finuge crossing — links the parish to Killocrim across the water. The 1660 plantation laid down the bones of the place; the road from Listowel to Lixnaw moved it to where it sits now.

What anyone outside the parish knows about Finuge is the football. Finuge GAA, founded in 1888, won the All-Ireland Junior Club Championship in 2006, the Munster Junior in 2003 and 2005, four county Junior titles and five North Kerry senior titles. Out of one small pitch came Paul Galvin — four All-Ireland senior medals with Kerry, Footballer of the Year in 2009 — Éamonn Fitzmaurice, who managed Kerry to the 2014 All-Ireland, and Jimmy Deenihan, the long-serving TD and government minister. Seventeen senior All-Ireland medals between players who started here. For a parish this size, the maths does not really work. It just keeps happening.

Around all of that sits the literature. Bryan MacMahon was a Listowel man — principal of Scoil Réalta na Maidine in the town for forty-four years — but the country he wrote was this country: the road from Listowel out through Finuge and Lixnaw and Ballyduff, the small farms, the travelling people, the funerals, the matches. Sean McCarthy, the folk songwriter, was a Finuge native. There is no museum to any of it. Just a road, a chapel, a pitch, a pub and the country either side.

Population

~250

Walk score

Crossroads, chapel, pub, pitch — all within five minutes

Founded

Settled c. 1660 in the Cromwellian plantation

Coords

52.4625° N, 9.5283° W

01 / 07

At a glance.

Three things every local will eventually mention. Read these and you've already understood more than most day-trippers do.

01 MacMahon country

The North Kerry of the writer's books.

Bryan MacMahon (1909–1998) — Listowel schoolmaster, novelist of "The Honey Spike," translator of Peig — wrote a North Kerry that runs straight through this parish. The road, the chapel, the cattle, the talk: it's all on the page.

Stories & lore → 02 Finuge GAA

A small parish with a big board.

All-Ireland Junior Club champions 2006. Munster Junior 2003 and 2005. Five North Kerry senior titles. Paul Galvin played his club football here. Éamonn Fitzmaurice and Jimmy Deenihan came up through the same pitch.

Stories & lore → 03 North Kerry farmland

On the road from Listowel to Lixnaw.

The R553 between two bigger places. Dairy fields, the river Feale running south of the village, the Finuge crossing over to Killocrim. Sheehan's thatched house at the cross has been there three hundred years.

Walks & outings →

02 / 07

The pubs.

None of these are themed Irish pubs, because they don't need to be. A few that earn the trip:

Connaway's Bar

Locals, GAA on the wall

Village pub

The pub at the cross. The match is on if there's a match on; the talk is the talk. Don't expect food past tea-time and don't expect a session — that's Listowel five kilometres up the road. Expect a quiet pint in a country pub that knows its own customers' orders.

03 / 07

Stories & lore.

The reason to come back. The things every local will eventually tell you about, usually after the second pint.

Listowel master, North Kerry voice

Bryan MacMahon

Bryan MacMahon (1909–1998) was born in Listowel and taught at Scoil Réalta na Maidine in the town for forty-four years, becoming principal. He wrote novels ("The Honey Spike," 1967), short stories ("The Lion Tamer," "The Red Petticoat"), plays, two autobiographies ("The Master," 1992; "The Storyman," 1994) and produced the standard English translation of Peig Sayers's "Peig." He didn't live in Finuge. He didn't have to — the parish was on the road he travelled, in the children he taught, in the funerals he went to. North Kerry's literary century — MacMahon, John B. Keane, Brendan Kennelly — happened up the road, and the country it was written from runs through the village.

1888, and still going

Finuge GAA

Founded in 1888, four years after the GAA itself, the club has carried more weight than its size suggests. The big year was 2006: Kerry Junior champions, Munster Junior, then All-Ireland Junior Club at Croke Park. Add the Munster Junior of 2003 and 2005, the county Juniors of 1983, 1996, 2002 and 2004, and five North Kerry Senior titles (1967, 1987, 1996, 2001, 2011). The home ground is O'Sullivan Park. For senior county football, Finuge combines with the neighbouring clubs as Feale Rangers. The roll of senior Kerry players coming out of the parish is the long story: Jimmy Deenihan, Paul Galvin, Éamonn Fitzmaurice, Enda Galvin, Pat Corridan and the rest.

Four All-Irelands, and a clothing line

Paul Galvin

Born in Lixnaw in 1979, Galvin played his club football with Finuge from 1998 to 2015 and his county football with Kerry through the great mid-2000s run. Four senior All-Ireland medals (2004, 2006, 2007, 2009). Footballer of the Year in 2009. Three All-Stars. Captain of Kerry in 2008. The career was famous for the football and infamous for the temper — suspensions, headlines, comebacks. After football he moved into fashion, design and a column or two. The pitch that grew him is two minutes from Connaway's.

Three hundred years at the cross

Sheehan's thatched house

At Finuge Cross stands a small thatched house that local historians put among the oldest surviving authentic thatched cottages in Ireland — at least three hundred years old, in continuous use through most of them. It is private property, not a museum, not signposted. You drive past it and if you don't know it's there, you don't see it. If you do, you slow down. The chapel is up the road; the pitch is beyond that; the village is the road between them.

04 / 07

Things to do outside.

Wear waterproofs. Bring a sandwich. Tell someone where you're going if it's the mountain.

North Kerry Way — Finuge stretch The North Kerry Way runs Tralee–Listowel–Tarbert and the Finuge–Lixnaw section crosses quiet boreens and farm tracks through dairy country. Not dramatic walking — hedge-and-ditch, not cliff-and-headland — but the views back to the Stack's Mountains and west to the Cashen do the work. Pick it up at the village and walk an hour either way.

Variabledistance

Half-day sectionstime

The Feale at Finuge crossing Walk south out of the village to the bridge over the Feale at the Finuge crossing. The river runs west from here to the Cashen estuary. Otters in the right light; herons most days. Country roads, not paths — watch for tractors.

Short out-and-backdistance

30 mintime

05 / 07

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar–May

Lambs in the fields, the GAA league starting up, the days lengthening. The parish at its quietest and most itself.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun–Aug

Long evenings in dairy country. Listowel Writers' Week up the road in late May; championship football on Sunday afternoons.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep–Oct

Listowel Races pull the crowd up the road; Finuge stays quiet. County championship knockout football. If Feale Rangers are in it, the parish is in it.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov–Feb

Wet, dark, indoors. The pub is open. The chapel is open. That's the size of it.

◐ Mind yourself

06 / 07

What to skip.

Honestly? Don't bother.

If a local was sitting beside you, this is the bit where they'd lean in.

Looking for nightlife

There isn't any. Listowel is five kilometres up the road and has the pubs, the music and the festivals. Finuge is the country either side.

A Bryan MacMahon trail

There isn't one. He taught in Listowel, not here. The parish is part of the country he wrote about, not a literary stop on a tour.

Driving through without slowing down

Sheehan's thatched cottage is at the cross and you'll miss it at speed. The chapel and the pitch are both worth a stop. The whole village takes ten minutes if you let it.

Getting there.

By car

Five kilometres west of Listowel on the R553, on the road to Lixnaw. Tralee is 25 kilometres south. Limerick is about 1h 30m via the N21 and Listowel.

By bus

Bus Éireann route 274 between Tralee and Listowel runs along the R553 corridor; Local Link Kerry covers rural North Kerry with limited services. Otherwise, this is car country.

By train

No station. Tralee is the nearest, 30 minutes by road; the line through North Kerry to Limerick closed in 1963.