The Kerry Senior Football Championship (known for sponsorship reasons as Garvey’s SuperValu Senior Football Championship) is an annual

Gaelic football Gaelic football (; short name '')'', commonly known as simply Gaelic, GAA, or football, is an Irish team sport. A form of football, it is played between two teams of 15 players on a rectangular grass pitch. The objective of the sport is to score ...

competition organised by the Kerry County Board of the

Gaelic Athletic Association The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA; ; CLG) is an Irish international amateur sports, amateur sporting and cultural organisation, focused primarily on promoting indigenous Gaelic games and pastimes, which include the traditional Irish sports o ...

since 1889 for the top Gaelic football teams in the county of Kerry in

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

. The series of games are played during the summer and autumn months, with the county final currently being played in either

Austin Stack Park Austin Stack Park is a GAA stadium in Tralee, County Kerry, Ireland. It is one of the stadiums used by Kerry GAA's Gaelic football team and the stadium of the hurling team. The ground was named after Austin Stack, an Irish revolutionary and ...

FitzGerald Stadium Fitzgerald Stadium () is the principal GAA stadium in Killarney, Ireland, and is the home championship venue for the Kerry senior football team. Named in honour of one of the first great players of the Gaelic Athletic Association, Dick Fitz ...

in October. Initially played as a knock-out competition, the championship currently uses a double elimination format whereby each team is guaranteed at least two games. The Kerry County Championship is an integral part of the wider

Munster Senior Club Football Championship The Munster Senior Club Football Championship (known for sponsorship reasons as the AIB Munster GAA Football Senior Club Championship) is an annual Gaelic football competition for the champion clubs of each county. It has been organised by the ...

. The winners of the Kerry county final join the champion clubs of the other five counties to contest the provincial championship. The winning team of the county championship also has the honour of naming the captain of the Kerry senior team for the following year. The title has been won at least once by 22 different teams. The all-time record-holders are Dr. Crokes who have both won a total of 14 titles, the most recent being in 2024. The winners receive the Bishop Moynihan Cup, named for Denis Moynihan, Catholic

Bishop of Kerry The bishop of Kerry () is the ordinary of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Kerry, one of the suffragan dioceses of the Archdiocese of Cashel and Emly in Ireland. The Episcopal see changed its name from Ardfert and Aghadoe to Kerry on 20 Decembe ...

in 1952–1969.

Format

The Championship is contested annually by Kerry's Senior clubs for that year (the teams who compete in the Kerry Club Football Championship) and Kerry's divisional teams. The Championship has almost always being played using a knockout type format, with the exception being in

2022 The year began with another wave in the COVID-19 pandemic, with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant, Omicron spreading rapidly and becoming the dominant variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus worldwide. Tracking a decrease in cases and deaths, 2022 saw ...

and

2023 Catastrophic natural disasters in 2023 included the Lists of 21st-century earthquakes, 5th-deadliest earthquake of the 21st century 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquakes, striking Turkey and Syria, leaving up to 62,000 people dead; Cyclone Freddy ...

when a first round group phase was used to produce 8 quarter-finalists. The knockout type format has returned for

2024 The year saw the list of ongoing armed conflicts, continuation of major armed conflicts, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Myanmar civil war (2021–present), Myanmar civil war, the Sudanese civil war (2023–present), Sudane ...

with the first two rounds being a

double-elimination A double-elimination tournament is a type of elimination tournament competition in which a participant ceases to be eligible to win the tournament's championship upon having lost ''two'' games or matches. It stands in contrast to a single-elimin ...

format while a

single-elimination A single-elimination knockout, or sudden-death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of a match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final match-up, w ...

format applies from then on.

Relegation and promotion

Relegation from and promotion to the Championship is based on the Kerry Club Football Championship each year. Divisional sides are not affected by relegation. Due to the expansion of the Club Football Championship beginning in 2025, no teams will be relegated from the Senior Championship in 2024 or 2025.

Future expansion

With the Kerry Club Football Championship expanding to 9 teams in 2025 and then 10 in 2026, it was planned that the Kerry SFC would also increase its participants from 16 to 18 over the following two years. In this expanded format, the 8 divisional teams would play a double-elimination preliminary round which would see 6 of those teams join the 9 or 10 club sides in the first round proper of the Championship, which would then use a single-elimination format from then on. However in April 2025 the Kerry County Board approved a proposal from Feale Rangers and

Shannon Rangers Shannon Rangers is a North Kerry Divisional Gaelic football team in County Kerry, Ireland, based around the Shannon Estuary. Founded in 1940, the team compete in the Kerry Senior Football Championship, which they have won on 5 occasions. They al ...

that they would compete as a combined team ( North Kerry) in the upcoming championship, thus reducing the number of Divisional sides to 7.

Teams

2025 Teams

16 teams will compete in the 2025 Kerry Senior Football Championship: 9 clubs and 7 divisional teams.

Clubs eligible for divisional teams

Note 1: Kenmare District no longer enter a divisional team so their affiliated clubs played for East Kerry until 2025 when Kilgarvan switched to South Kerry. Note 2:

Tralee Tralee ( ; , ; formerly , meaning 'strand of the River Lee') is the county town of County Kerry in the south-west of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. The town is on the northern side of the neck of the Dingle Peninsula, and is the largest town in ...

no longer enter a divisional team so their affiliated clubs play for St Brendan’s.

Roll of honour

By club

Performances by division

List of finals

Records and statistics

Teams

By decade

The most successful team of each decade, judged by number of Kerry Senior Football Championship titles, is as follows: * 1880s: 1 for

Laune Rangers Laune Rangers is a Gaelic football and Hurling club based in town of Killorglin, County Kerry, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. The club is affiliated to Kerry GAA. Rangers won the All-Ireland Senior Club Football Championship in 1996. History T ...

(1889) * 1890s: 3 each for

(1890-92-93) and Ballymacelligott (1891-94-95) * 1900s: 4 for Tralee Mitchels (1902-03-07-08) * 1910s: 3 each for Tralee Mitchels (1910-17-19) and Dr Crokes (1912-13-14) * 1920s: 3 for Tralee Division (1925-26-27) * 1930s: 4 for

Austin Stacks Austin Stacks is a hurling and Gaelic football club based in Tralee in County Kerry, Ireland. Founded in 1917, the club has more All-Ireland Senior Football Championship medals and GAA All-Stars than any other Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA ...

(1930-31-32-36) * 1940s: 5 for

Dingle Dingle ( or ''Daingean Uí Chúis'', meaning "fort of Ó Cúis") is a town in County Kerry in the south-west of Ireland. The only town on the Dingle Peninsula (known in Irish as ''Corca Dhuibhne''), it sits on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coa ...

(1940-41-43-44-48) * 1950s: 3 each for

Kerins O'Rahilly's Kerins O'Rahilly's' Gaelic Athletic Association club from Tralee, County Kerry, Ireland. They are based in the Strand Road area of the town. They are in Division 1 of the county league which they won in 2006, and compete in the Intermediate Cha ...

(1953-54-57) and South Kerry (1955-56-58) * 1960s: 5 for John Mitchels (1960-61-62-63-66) * 1970s: 4 for

(1973-75-76-79) * 1980s: 2 each for South Kerry (1981–82) and West Kerry (1984–85) * 1990s: 3 each for

(1993-95-96) and East Kerry (1997-98-99) * 2000s: 4 for South Kerry (2004-05-06-09) * 2010s: 7 for Dr Crokes (2010-11-12-13-16-17-18) * 2020s: 3 for East Kerry (2020-22-23)

Gaps

Top ten longest gaps between successive championship titles: * 78 years:

(1911–1989) * 77 years: Dr Crokes (1914–1991) * 45 years:

(1957–2002) * 37 years:

(1936–1973) * 34 years:

Killarney Killarney ( ; , meaning 'church of sloes') is a town in County Kerry, southwestern Republic of Ireland, Ireland. The town is on the northeastern shore of Lough Leane, part of Killarney National Park, and is home to St Mary's Cathedral, Killar ...

(1949–1983) * 27 years: Feale Rangers (1980–2007) * 27 years: East Kerry (1970–1997) * 23 years: Ballymacelligott (1895–1918) * 23 years: South Kerry (1958–1981) * 22 years: South Kerry (1982–2004) –

References

{{Kerry GAA, state=expanded Gaelic football competitions in County Kerry Senior Gaelic football county championships 1889 establishments in Ireland Recurring sporting events established in 1889

Format

Relegation and promotion

Future expansion

Teams

2025 Teams

Clubs eligible for divisional teams

Roll of honour

By club

Performances by division

List of finals

Records and statistics

Teams

By decade

Gaps

See also

References