HE peeked through the crowd at the Carrickdale, waiting for his hero to come home with the Sam Maguire.
A wee lad from Burren standing in a sea of red and black with his eyes locked on the window for the first sign of the Down champions of 1991. His daddy was one of them.
Excitement built until the bus arrived and when it did Brendan McKernan jumped out and made his way through the throng to find him.
Smiles.
Hugs.
A fire was lit in three year-old Kevin McKernan that day.
“When I grow up…” he promised himself and three decades later he can reflect on how he followed in his father’s footsteps.
Last week, after 16 seasons of total commitment, Kevin called time on his career with Down and his only regret is that he can’t play for another 16. Throughout the good years and the bad, every ounce he had was left on fields the length and breadth of Ireland and he bowed out owing his county absolutely nothing.
“He always enjoyed the football - I suppose he had no option, had he?” says Brendan with a chuckle.
FOR the McKernan family, life was football and football was life when Brendan was chasing, and winning, All-Irelands with club and county. For Kevin, his dad’s mates were living legends, jolly giants who called at the house before training and games.
“The biggest memory I have of that time is my da being able to call some of the greatest Down men ever his friends,” says Kevin.
“Ross Carr and Mickey Linden used to pick him up! I used to look at them and think: ‘Maybe I could do that some day because my daddy has done it’, it gave me that dream that it was possible.
“My da trained hard and he worked hard for our family and we got to see him do something very special on the football pitch. I always wanted to follow him and play for Down and I suppose it was tough-enough in my youth when I was trying to make a name for myself.
“I was always known as ‘Brendan McKernan’s son’. It wasn’t as if people would say: ‘You’ll not lace his boots’ but he was a tough act to follow.”
The apple didn’t fall far from the tree. Brendan had been a battling corner-back but Kevin was a natural footballer and his talent blossomed at the Abbey CBS where he says he “had great coaches there and great friends who really gave me a massive foothold in the game”.
He captained the Newry school to the MacCrory and Hogan Cups in 2006.
A back injury disrupted his season with the Down minors in 2005 but he recovered to play in the All-Ireland final victory and went on to win an Ulster title with the Mourne U21s in 2008. By that stage, Ross Carr had brought him into the senior squad.
At club level, Brendan had decided early on that he would let his son make his own way. He didn’t get involved in coaching underage teams but when Kevin came through to adult football he partnered his dad in midfield for the Burren reserves. And they even played against each other when the Burren Thirds played the Down Masters in the South Down Reserve League.
“I played for the Masters for a couple of years and he was playing in one of the games,” Brendan explains.
“They got a lesson that day!”
Yes, football was in the blood but you suspect that Kevin McKernan would always have found his way to the GAA. He was drawn to it and his love for the game was obvious and infectious.
“I look back on playing football and think how happy I was doing it,” he says.
“I’m back training with the club now and I love it, I love going out training with the lads and I’ll be trying to help the young fellas fulfil their potential.
“I always loved football and I loved playing for Down. That feeling of scoring a point or making a big block...
“I remember winning a game with the Ranch (St Mary’s) at DCU and Paddy Tally reminding us to savour that feeling you get in the minute or 30 seconds after the final whistle of a big victory. You can’t bottle that feeling and I always enjoyed it
“I was lucky to win games but I just loved football, the friendships it has given me. It is a hugely positive thing for any young fella to be involved in and to strive to be a county footballer. I played for Down for 15 years and it was tough, it was time-consuming but you’re fulfilling a dream and you’re doing something not too many people get to do.
“It took a lot of time and effort but to play in front of packed houses regularly… It’s something you dream about growing up but to actually experience it… I just hope that other young people aspire to be in the Down team in the future to go and do what great men did before me.
“Unfortunately I didn’t get the medals at senior level but I know it’s definitely coming for Down and hopefully that will be sooner rather than later.”
He goes back to that hope for the future constantly throughout our conversation.
He bows out with his county at a very low ebb. Down didn’t win a game in 2022 - they were relegated to Division Three and dumped out of the Ulster Championship and then the Tailteann Cup without much ado.
Does the jersey mean as much to the young lads coming through?
“Och it does, boy, it does,” he says.
“I’ve seen a conveyor belt of fellas coming through.
“We have a great lads there now, boys like Daniel Guinness, Pierce Laverty, Liam Kerr who are going to carry that on for Down and I’m very excited about what lies ahead. There’s a great U20 team there that has come through with lads like Andrew Gilmore and Ruairi O’Hare, these are great fellas who want to put their shoulder to the wheel for Down and I’m looking forward to seeing what lies ahead.”
KEVIN McKernan’s debut for Down was a National League clash against Armagh in Crossmaglen on March 25th, 2007. Tall and lean with that trademark jet-black mane, he raced on as a substitute to mix it with McGrane and McGeeney and got a taste of what it was all about.
“I remember when I came onto the panel, I thought I had to be really special and do things different but I didn’t, I just had to work hard, enjoy the football and get stuck in,” he says.
“Danny Hughes told me: ’You’re a very good Division One club player in Down and you’re playing against very good club players from Monaghan, or Kerry, or wherever, they’re no different than you’.
“His advice stuck with me for years and I passed it on to lads when they came in: ‘You’re playing against club players from other counties and they’re very good players just like you’.”
What struck Hughes about McKernan when he joined the panel were his natural leadership qualities and the passion he had for his county colours.
“I was always aware of Kevin and when he came in you could see the leadership potential in him,” he says.
“The other thing was his love for Down. That’s what shone through in him; that he loved Down and he wanted to play for Down. He played for six different management set-ups in his time and they all wanted him in their team and that shows you how well he was thought of.
“It says it all about how highly he was thought of. He could always produce the goods and every manager wanted him in their team.”
Hughes was one of the senior players in the Down team that forced their way out of Division Three under Ross Carr in 2009. James McCartan took over in 2010 with Paddy Tally and Brian McIver by his side.
Marty Clarke’s return from Aussie Rules added belief and purpose and Down beat Donegal in Ballybofey but then fell short against a Tyrone side they had beaten two years previously.
No punches were pulled at the team meeting that followed that defeat.
“I was young, I was just listening,” recalls Kevin, now a teacher at St Ronan’s Primary School in Newry.
“I remember the boys saying: ‘Do we really want to give this All-Ireland a rattle through the Qualifiers?’
“The senior boys were saying: ‘Can we train, really train like dogs here and give this a lash?’ I was thinking: ‘What! Is this possible!?’
“I don’t think I spoke. It was hot and heavy around the defeat to Tyrone. We beat them in Ulster in 2008 and they went on to win the All-Ireland that year and then in 2009 we were beaten by Wicklow which was horrendous.
“The boys were saying: ‘Why can Tyrone go on and win the Sam Maguire after us beating them in Newry? Why don’t we consider ourselves as contenders?’
“Paddy Tally, Brian McIver and Jerome Johnston were in the management team and they gave us serious belief. They were saying: ‘Why would we not be as good as Tyrone?’”
DOWN began to train with purpose and beat Offaly, Longford and then Sligo in the Qualifiers to reach the quarter-finals and drew Kerry at Croke Park. That was supposed to be their All-Ireland final, the end of the road for them. But they weren’t having that.
“I had lost my place in the team before that,” Kevin recalls.
“I got caught for a couple of points by Martin Penrose when we played Tyrone. Aidan Carr, James Colgan and myself were battling for a jersey but I got back in and then held my place and I got man of the match against Kerry.
“Kerry in Croke Park… Like, what else would you want to be doing?! And then the semi-final against Kildare was unreal. Burren took a bus down and they were all behind the goal where the last shot happened (Kildare hit the bar with the last action of the game) and I remember running over to them thinking: ‘We’ve got to an All-Ireland final!’
“In that semi-final I was marking Eamon O’Callaghan and he got off to a flier. We were struggling for scores and I was thinking I’d get taken off before half-time. I needed to get on the ball and make things happen and then a ball broke in midfield and I just thought I’d take a gamble on it. Danny Hughes slipped it to me and I put it over the bar into the Canal End.
“I got another one before half-time and I always think that my whole career came down to that one moment of taking a chance. If you don’t take risks and go for things, on the pitch and in life, you live with regrets.”
After half-an-hour of the final, Down led Cork 7-2. The Rebels fought back but when McKernan scored, Down had their noses in front 11-10 ahead on 52 minutes. But there was no happy ending.
“It’ll haunt me to the day I die that we didn’t win that final,” he says.
“I’ve never watched the whole game since.
“We didn’t get the All-Ireland medal but I got nominated for an Allstar and represented Ireland in the International Rules and I think it all came off taking that gamble against Kildare and just going for it. Take a chance and go for it and you never know what can happen.
“I look at the All-Ireland every year and I always think there’s a chance that any team can make a push. Who’s to say Armagh can’t push for a final this year? I know the margins and I know the top six is hard to break into but if they start taking each other out all of a sudden there’s a gap. That’s what happened in our year.”
TOO often our sporting heroes don’t get the ending they deserve. McKernan didn’t play Championship this year, he was an unused sub against Monaghan and Cavan so his last appearance was the League loss to Clare almost 15 years to the day after his debut.
“I wasn’t used in the Monaghan game which was disappointing,” he says.
“I was moving rightly at training.
“But there’s another group of players coming and they are going to lead this thing now. Hopefully things will move forward and if they stick together they can do something.
“My biggest regret with Down was the turnover of players. Every year we had to replace four or five players so hopefully we can get some consistency now because we need lads to commit to the cause for a period of time.”
Sixteen seasons gone in the blink of an eye and he bows out as an Ireland international, a Sigerson Cup winner, an All-Ireland finalist… Medals and happy memories of weekends spent “tipping to every corner of Ireland” after he’d thrown his bag on top of 30 others in the boot of a bus.
“There’s boys I played with for the guts of 15 years – Darren O’Hagan, Benny McArdle… Great fellas that you grew up hating at club level and then became real good friends with and went to war with,” he says.
“My Burren clubmates with Down like Donal O’Hare, Dan McCartan, Decky Rooney, Shea McGovern and in recent years Odhran Murdock, Ryan Magill and Paddy McCarthy have come in. All great clubmen and good teammates.
“There are so many… Mark Poland, we had great battles on the pitch and he was an absolute wizard centre half-forward. You knew that if you gave him the ball great things were going to happen.
“Conor Laverty is another one. There’s massive rivalry between Burren and Kilcoo but playing with him for Down was brilliant. Brendy McVeigh, what a character, what a man…
“Liam Doyle. He was playing centre half-forward when I came into the panel and he probably made me the player I became in terms of my kick-passing. I remember chasing his tail and he was threading balls to Benny Coulter. I was going: ‘How did he see that pass?’ I tried to bring that into my game.
“Big Dan Gordon catching balls in midfield… It was class to play with all those men.
“Everything goes by in a flash but I’ve so many great memories and I wouldn’t change it for the world. I wish I could rewind the clock back and do it all again.”
He’ll concentrate on bringing up his daughters and playing for Burren. He helps his dad with the club’s U15 team and it’ll be a surprise if he doesn’t graduate to senior management one day.
Down is his past now but it could be his future.
That fire will never go out.
