It can be hard growing up in a house full of boys, especially in one as fiercely competitive as the Kavanagh home just down the road from Turner’s Cross. Of the five brothers, Derek was the baby, looking up to Joe and Larry as they carved the path he would eventually follow in pursuit of club and county glory.
Derek became a stalwart of the great Rebel team of the 2000s, the side that burst onto the scene with an All-Ireland semi-final appearance in 2005. Cork spent the next four seasons knocking on the door before finally breaking through in 2010, Kavanagh’s last year on the panel.
At club level, he endured and embraced a ferocious career with the magnificent Nemo Rangers team of the era, winning eight Cork titles, four Munsters, and an All-Ireland club crown. The GAA bug had bitten early, watching his older brothers shine while he was still a youngster on the sideline.
“There’s a bit of an age gap between me and the lads. Joe was eight years older than me, and Larry was eleven,” he said. “I grew up through the ’80s watching them play with the school teams and with Nemo, and then Cork minors and so on.
“It’s what I was bred on as an impressionable eight-to-eighteen-year-old. Then, as soon as I came of age, I was able to get onto the Nemo senior team with both of them there, each with ten years of experience behind them.
“I was coming in very raw to a highly experienced Nemo team, and two of my brothers were among the leaders of that group. I had the challenge of trying to break into a really strong team, but it was great because there was no expectation other than to come in and play my part on this brilliant side.”
The Kavanagh house backed onto the playing pitches of the famous Coláiste Chríost Rí, a school with a rich heritage in both hurling and Gaelic football. It has won four Hogan Cups, including two in the ’80s, where Joe and Larry played starring roles as a young Derek watched from the sidelines.
“Coláiste Chríost Rí was essentially our back garden, and that’s where we’d be mucking around all day, be it football or tip-the-can or whatever it might have been.
“I loved going to games. My mother really loved going to all the matches. I remember going down to watch Chríost Rí as a very young kid, the whole buzz of it. We were spoilt, really, between Chríost Rí and Nemo playing in All-Ireland finals almost every year.
“I grew up thinking that was just the norm. You’d see all the excitement and intensity, and I found that quite intoxicating. That was my mindset from about the age of ten.”
Given the age gap, Derek played just one intercounty season alongside his brother Joe, who made thirty-six championship appearances for Cork between 1992 and 2002. Derek stepped away from the panel after his debut year, returning in 2003, by which time Joe had retired.
Derek would go on to make twenty-six championship appearances for Cork and was named captain in 2006, leading the Rebels to a Munster title after defeating old rivals Kerry under the stewardship of the legendary Billy Morgan, then in his third stint on the sideline.
Intercounty football is two or three levels up from club, and there’s definitely a degree of intimidation”
“I made the panel in 2001, and Joe was starting to rack up some serious injuries. I didn’t make it in 2002, which was his last year, and then I came back the following season,” Derek recalled.
“Having Joe there gave me that bit of familiarity, having someone you knew in the dressing room. Intercounty football is two or three levels up from club, and there’s definitely a degree of intimidation. So having a brother and clubmate there added a nice comfort factor.”
Cork eventually brought the Sam Maguire Cup back to the banks of the River Lee in 2010, claiming their seventh ever All-Ireland crown. They completed a league and championship double that year but came up just short in the Munster semi-final, losing by a single point to Kerry.
Triumphed
Forced to take the scenic route through three rounds of qualifiers before the All-Ireland series, Cork finally triumphed in a thrilling decider, edging Down 0-16 to 0-15. The victory bridged a twenty-year gap for the Rebel County, which had last tasted All-Ireland success in 1990 when Larry Tompkins hoisted the Sam Maguire Cup high over the Dublin skyline.
For Kavanagh, it was his final year at intercounty level, and it couldn’t have ended on a sweeter note. Not long after, he would need a hip replacement, and knowing that made the 2010 campaign feel like one last precious chance to reach the promised land.
“Getting over the line in 2010 was so symbolic because it had been such a struggle. We’d been there since 2005 and had finals or semi-finals almost every year, but getting over it in 2010 was something else entirely,” he said. “When you lose big games, it brings a lot of doubt and hurt. On reflection, I think the losses are far more intense than the victories.
“For us, it became obsessive; the demons had crept in. We were a very carefully configured team, heavily conditioned and motivated, and we knew we would never have been at peace with ourselves either individually or collectively if we didn’t win an All-Ireland. We did it in 2010, and it just brought a lot of vindication to our lives.
“At intercounty level, you quickly learn that the only thing that matters is winning. It demands everything: your time, focus, and energy. If you’re going to give ten years of your life and not win an All-Ireland, you’ll carry those doubts around forever.
“It was an incredibly enjoyable time, and I was just delighted we got over the line, knowing that I was finished. I was living on borrowed time, because I had a hip replacement coming a year later.
“I just feel extremely lucky to have done it and to have picked up some medals along the way. There were some incredible players, better than me, who didn’t win All-Irelands. That’s probably not fair, but that’s just the way it goes sometimes in sport.”
