Castledermot's Dan O'Keefe looks back on a glittering career

Castledermot have been no strangers to heartache in recent years. Back-to-back Intermediate Football Championship final defeats will no doubt have stung and, unfortunately, the club is all too familiar with this story.

Legendary clubman Dan O’Keefe lost three Intermediate football finals and two more deciders in Senior Hurling, an experience enough to test the resilience of any player.

Despite that, Dan retired with three SHC winners medals, as well as footballing titles at Junior and Intermediate level. So there is no better man to have around the place right now as a reminder that you have to stick at it to get your reward.

Dan arrived in the area at seven years old in 1967 with his family and, coming from Kilkenny, they were immediately drawn to the hurling club.

The foundations of the senior success to come would be laid by the club’s Minor Hurling Championship wins in the late 70s and early 80s. Those teams were led by R.E Byrne, a man at the heart of the success of many underrage Castledermot teams in that period.

Dan explained, “His father was a Wexford man and he was originally from there, but he was mad into hurling and was one of the big movers in the early stages. It was himself and Pat ‘The Barber’ Byrne that were the big driving force behind the club’s hurling. It was generally a football club up until that point and there was hurling, but it was somewhat left to one side and not taken too seriously.

“I still have a fierce interest in Gaelic Games, but hurling would be my big love. Even still to this day, I would still rather watch a hurling game than any other.”

Dan’s first taste of success would come in footballing action with Castledermot when they lifted the 1979 Kildare Junior Championship. The club’s 1-6 to 0-8 victory over Leixlip was then followed by a Jack Higgins Cup win with victory over Kill.

“We got straight to the Intermediate final then in 1980 and St Laurence's beat us (4-7 to 2-5). We lost another final in 81 to Rathangan (2-11 to 0-10) and then in 83, Larry Tompkins’ Eadestown beat us (3-11 to 1-9) before we eventually got over the line,” Dan recalled.

“There were three losing finals before we got there. A good few of the lads that lost recently were on the 2015 team that won and two of my sons were on that team. These lads know, as well I do, that you have to keep at it and we are still trying to get there. That’s football.”

Castledermot lifted the Intermediate Football Championship in 1985 following a 1-9 to 0-9 win over Suncroft and lifted their first title at that level since 1963.

“It was great because the Intermediate Championship to this day is still the most competitive and the hardest to win. It has always been like that because there are the few traditionally Senior teams as well as the ones coming up from Junior on good form too,” Dan said.

The '85 IFC win would be the last of Dan’s footballing medal wins, but while they were in the midst of this success, the Castledermot hurlers were still trying to climb the mountain.

The hurlers had reached the first Senior final in the club’s history in 1983, but faced one of the greatest Kildare hurling teams of all-time in the decider. Castledermot faced an Ardclough side aiming for five-in-a-row and came up short 1-10 to 0-6.

Ardclough again stopped Castledermot’s surge for their first ever Senior hurling title with a 1-9 to 1-7 in the 1985 final. In the years that followed, they continued to try and add their name among the hurling elites and would finally do so in 1988.

“It was looking at one stage like we missed our chance. We definitely had better teams before '88 and we didn’t win a Championship. We just took a different approach that year after we brought in Jim Gibbons, a Kilkenny man,” Dan explained.

“We played all of our challenge games in Kilkenny that year, including against my home club that my brother was involved with at the time. Sometimes we were beaten by 22 points, but we played down in Castelcomer just before the Championship started and were only beaten by two. That was the plan that year, we played no other clubs and concentrated on the stronger hurling side of things and it all seemed to take off from there.”

Castledermot beat reigning champions Coill Dubh 3-6 to 0-6 in the '88 final to lift their first Senior Hurling Championship.

“It was a great win for us because there had been so much of getting closer and closer. It was a brilliant thing to be part of. A lot of us had come from those U14s and U16s winning teams with all the great club men that brought us through,” Dan said.

“There were unbelievable celebrations. It was just a great time for the club and the town because we had great support from all of the surrounding areas.”

The mark of any great team is the ability to replicate success and Castledermot succeeded in showing it was no fluke the year before by winning the 1989 Championship too.

The title defence was no simple task either as the reigning champions produced an enormous comeback win to beat Broadford 5-6 to 1-15 in the final.

“They were leading us by eight or nine points with 15 minutes to go, but I think the reason we won that one is because we had won the year before. We stayed hurling away and Broadford hadn’t won a Senior title in 25 years. We got the goals late on and got it over the line,” Dan recalled.

“They might have, like we had on several occasions against Ardclough and Éire Óg, thought that we nearly had the game won. Then all of a sudden it is snatched from you. That is what experience does for you and we had it in '89 and never gave up. We had some fine hurlers too to go with that and knew each other so well. 95% of us played both football and hurling for the club.”

Two lean years would follow before Dan’s own crowning achievement. He was made Casteldermot captain in 1992 and led the club to their third Senior hurling title that same year.

“We were well in control that day and Éire Óg were a fine team then too, they had some brilliant hurlers. That was a good win because we were always very close with them in regards to matches, but we got a good run on them that day and got the win.”

Castledermot produced a commanding final day win of 4-11 to 0-12 over Éire Óg in what would be the third and final SHC win for the club.

The obvious next question to ask Dan was, would that young man in the mid-80s who had lost all those finals have taken the medals he ended up with?

“Without a doubt. The only unfortunate thing was that some of the players that were gone when we won in '88. It was sad that they weren't still with the team because so many of them were great servants to the club. They were big hurling people,” Dan said.

“We had such a great time in the club. I was chairman for years after and involved with training different teams and I am still heading down there to this day.”