As Kilkenny were celebrating their 33rd All-Ireland, a Kilkenny supporter and his young son turned out to us to discuss the match. After the extension of congratulations, the guy told us that his young son was born nine years ago, on the day Kilkenny beat Clare to win the All-Ireland in 2002. The kid's name (as if you had to guess): Liam. His brother, who's name I didn't learn, had been born on Saturday, though I'm sure his mother was doing everything she could to keep the child in her womb for yesterday's match. And then I turned on the Sunday Game last night and Eddie Brennan revealed he'd had a child during the week.
Perhaps this is not the largest sample group in the world, but it still struck me as odd. Is January riding month in Kilkenny? In the days after the Christmas holiday, when the rest of the country is emerging from a two-week hangover and getting prepared for the gloom and despair of January and February, are Kilkenny men purchasing Marvin Gaye cds and covering the bedrooms of their negative-equity drowned homes in white rose petals in the hopes of planting a seed in their beloved that will flower into a child born on a triumphant All-Ireland Sunday on the first Sunday in September? And what about all the children born last year in Kilkenny on All-Ireland Sunday? Were they placed in baskets and sent down the Nore, the Barrow and the Suir for Waterford and Tipp people to adopt?
Such questions only a true Kilkenny person could answer.
