Mayo GAA memorabilia sell for tidy sum at auction
Sean Flanagan, Padraig Carney and Eamonn Mongey at the head of the parade in Croke Park for Mayo's 1951 All-Ireland senior football final against Meath.
Items of Mayo GAA memorabilia recently went on sale at a historical collectables auction.
Fonsie Mealy’s Rare Books and Collectors' Sale at the end of April saw over 700 lots go under the hammer.
An official matchday programme of the 1951 All-Ireland Senior Football Final between Mayo and Meath featuring adverts and a printed photo of the Mayo team fetched €800 at the auction. The original price for the programme on the historic matchday on September 23rd, 1951, was fourpence.
Mayo’s All-Ireland semi-final against Kerry was the focus of another lot at the auction with a two-page programme of their first outing, which ended in a draw, fetching a price of €480. The programme’s score columns were filled in by the original owner. The item sold for threepence at the time of the game.
Another piece of memorabilia from this golden era of Mayo football that sold at the auction was a single-page poster with details of Mayo’s match against Louth on Easter Monday, April 18, 1949, at Mitcham Stadium in London for the Owen Ward Cup.
The game was billed as ‘Two First-Class teams travelling specially from Ireland to play for the Owen Ward Cup - All-Ireland Finalists versus Leinster Champions’ and was organised by the London GAA County Board. It was preceded by a hurling match between Brian Borus and Brothers Pearse. The poster, described as ‘scarce’ by the auctioneer, was sold for €260. Mayo and Louth were to meet in the All-Ireland Final a year later.
An official programme for Mayo’s game against New York at the Polo Grounds on October 31, 1954, was sold alongside five other New York GAA programmes dating from 1954 to 1958 for €1,050.
The highest-selling items at the auction were a prototype of the Liam McCarthy Cup and a Celtic Cross medal awarded to a Kerry player after they won their first of 38 All-Ireland titles in 1903, which sold for €8,000 each. Kerry incidentally defeated Mayo in the semi-finals of that year’s competition.
