Mayo All Ireland Champions
Oh, that glorious feeling – we’ll not forget it just yet.
Even now, it hardly feels real. It’s been just over two months since Mayo, mighty, magical Mayo, defeated Kerry in the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship. It was a win that ricocheted around the world – the western county’s first time to win the prized Sam Maguire Cup since 1951.
It’s been two months of pinching ourselves – is it really real? Did that actually happen? Was it all a fever dream? Two months of sore jaws all around, such was the wideness and the lengthiness of the smiles. Two months of soaking up every inch of press coverage, poring over newspaper articles. Two months of tears all too ready to brim at yet another emotive piece of writing or photographic expression of stunned disbelief turning so swiftly into unbridled joy.
It felt as if the whole country, and even further afield, was celebrating with us – and judging by the numbers of non-Mayo people who flooded into the county in the days and weeks following the historic victory (“We just wanted to come and see what it felt like here,” one Wexford couple told me), they certainly were. “I wish I was from Mayo,” griped a relative’s Dublin work colleague – not something we’ve often heard before!
The pride that pulsated through so many veins at the sight of those determined players who gave their all on the pitch has only grown since at the endless loop of pictures we’ve been treated to since. Sam Maguire being carried up Croagh Patrick. Sam Maguire visiting the children’s GAA Summer Camp on Clare Island. Sam Maguire at a prayer service in Knock Basilica. Sam Maguire spending a quiet few hours at the Mayo Hospice, in the oncology day ward at Mayo General Hospital. Sam Maguire being cheered by small boys and girls at their football clubs the length and breadth of the county. And the school visits have already started, now that those same boys and girls are back at their desks at the start of another academic term – the famed cup is to visit every school in the county before the end of the year.
Everywhere Sam Maguire has been, it’s been accompanied by two, three, four or more members of the victorious Mayo panel. You can’t help but feel for these lads – they must be exhausted at this stage, but their generosity in giving as many people as possible a chance to see the glorious trophy in the flesh has been legendary.
After watching the game at home, that glorious Sunday in July, the tears flowing with no off switch in sight, there was no possibility of being able to sit quietly and take it all in. And so off into Castlebar town I went, to see what the atmosphere was like. What felt like the world’s biggest street party was in full swing – a parade of cars gridlocked around the town’s streets, people hanging out of windows, cheering, and a cacophony of car horns matched only by the loudness of the smiles of those taking it all in.
Most people still seemed a bit stunned, many were capturing the celebrations on their phones, hugging loved ones, shaking their heads at the madness of it all. That unconfined joy continued for the next few days, as homecoming celebrations landed in various Mayo towns – Castlebar, Ballyhaunis, Claremorris, Belmullet, Ballina … the list grew longer as that first incredible week went on.
Writers like Keith Duggan (the Washington correspondent for The Irish Times), Colin Sheridan (The Examiner), Michael Foley and Malachy Clerkin captured the highs so beautifully in the aftermath of that special Sunday. A couple of the local Mayo newspapers had to do print re-runs after their bumper celebratory issues sold out within hours. Stephen Grealis and Martin Carney (himself a former Mayo player) went viral for their impassioned commentary on Midwest Radio. The Mayo jersey became an accepted form of dress for work, for socializing, for funerals even. Tickets for two Saw Doctors shows in Castlebar sold out in jig time, and when the Tuam band took to the stage at the iconic Electric Picnic music festival, they were joined for that song by members of the Green & Red team.
There were stories, so many stories, of J1 students abandoning their U.S. summer early to fly home for the game. Stories, too, of flights home from what seemed like every corner of the world. I was reminded of a long-ago Irish Voice colleague (hi, Maudy!) who flew home to Ireland in the mid-1990s for bated breath finals. I was reminded too of early Sunday mornings in a Woodside bar, where a bunch of us gathered for screenings of those same games – desperate for a Mayo win, glued to the action, wishing we were at home.
As life returns to normal, the evenings draw in, and the weather takes a September turn (it’s pouring rain as I write), our Mayo hearts settle down to a more sustainable rhythm. But oh, that glorious feeling – we’ll not forget it just yet.
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