Mayo's clash with Louth revives vivid memories
Tom Langan, Dan O'Neill and Seamus O'Donnell were all members of the Mayo senior football team that won the National League in 1954. They are pictured here in Boston during their tour of the United States, which was a prize for winning the league. Back row, from left: Tom McDonnell (county board secretary), Henry Dixon, Sean Downes, Willie Casey, John McAndrew, Paddy Irwin, Dan O'Neill, Tom Langan, Fr Paddy Towey (county board chairman). Front, from left: Sean Wynne, John Forde, Peter Solan, Sean Flanagan, Seamus O'Donnell, Ned Moriarity, Eamon Mongey.
Unexpectedly, Mayo and Louth, two counties most impatiently itching for an All-Ireland victory – Mayo for 75 years and Louth for 69 – face each other in Croke Park on Saturday at 6pm for a semi-final showdown.
Incredibly, even though I was only nine years of age, I have a razor-sharp memory of the last Louth victory on All-Ireland final day after a memorable match between Cork (the second largest county in Ireland) and Louth (the smallest). With me was my inseparable boyhood friend, Peter Browne, as sitting in the kitchen of the McHale family home in Currower, near Ballycastle, we listened to the commentary by Michael O’Hehir from Croke Park. At that time, the McHale family home was comprised of brother and sister, Paddy and Chris, in what later became the Jackson home when Chris married Mickey Jackson and where they would rear their family.
A clear memory too was that for the McHale family the occasion carried the additional weight of a loyalty to Chris’s sister Maisie in New York who was married to John Morgan, a native of County Louth and a great fan of Louth football. The gathering in McHales was intended as a form of solidarity with Maisie, John and Louth who were still awaiting another All-Ireland title to go with their 1910 and 1912 historic victories.
Mayo had, by then, already acquired three All-Ireland titles – in 1936, 1950 and 1952 – and, even though Peter and myself, both born in 1948, had no direct memory of such elemental victories we felt entitled as natives of Mayo to a certain swagger as Mayo had already won three All-Irelands and had created ‘a triple legend’. It seemed then just a matter of time until Mayo chalked up subsequent victories in rapid succession – as distinct from the present infamous and (it seems) ever-extending chasm of now 75 years that has paralysed so many Mayo teams in the interim.
On that day in Currower, our thoughts were fixed on cheering – in deference to Louth and the MacHale connection – Ireland’s smallest county to an unlikely victory by a goal and nine points to a goal and seven points, though we gained some county credit in the win as two Mayo natives – Dan O’Neill (Castlebar) and Seamie O’Donnell (Ballaghaderreen) - starred with Louth on that day. (However, next Saturday our focus won’t be on Louth).
The only explanation that I can offer for our particular presence in the MacHale home that day was our close friendship with Paddy McHale who often struggled with his entirely self-propelling wheelchair and as children we delighted in helping to push him around the parish especially for football matches in lieu of the many haircuts he treated us to – especially his versions of a severe cut which in later life was called ‘A Number One’ – all the rage at the time.
Peter and myself were firm friends, our homes adjacent to one another, the old school on the Glen road within a stone’s throw and, living as we did in one another’s pockets, our childhood has so many vivid memories of instances of childish excitement from helping ourselves to Canon Paddy Maloney’s inedible green apples in the parish priest’s orchard to playing imaginary footballing roles in the future.
We dreamt of All-Ireland finals in Croke Park while in training we exchanged imaginary competing roles at centrefield for Mayo with an ongoing commentary by Peter imitating Michael O’Hehir’s frantic commentating style as (in our dreams) we passed an imaginary ball usually with unerring accuracy to our hero, the legendary Tom Langan of Mayo fame, then in his prime but crucially too a neighbour from just down the road in the townland of Ballymachugh.
The only blot on our long-term preparation for charting paths of footballing excellence in future All-Ireland finals in Croke Park was the less than benign challenge of a neighbour whom we knew was liable to confiscate our modest football if we occasionally lost our touch and it ended up in his garden. To witness to our extraordinary development into football stars and what seemed to personify our future footballing fame – even the future Kobe wasn’t in our league – Peter and myself, courtesy of his father, James, were the proud - indeed incredibly lucky owners - of two red and green Mayo jerseys which, effectively, afforded our imaginary football experience a certain validity and which we adamantly refused to share under any circumstances with other friends like Brian Golden or Paddy Joe O’Grady.
In the universal unapologetic selfishness of childhood, the given wisdom was that what we had we held.
It’s not that I’m hoping Louth will win on Saturday. Far from it! Almost 70 years after my temporary conversion to Louth in 1957, I’ve reconverted to the true faith.
Up Mayo!
***
Unfortunately, while Peter and myself retained our loyalty to Mayo and joined, like so many more, the long and still winding road of expectation for a fourth All-Ireland victory, now three quarters of a century in extent, it was (not yet) to be. Our paths inevitably diverged – Peter emigrating to England and dying at 56 long before his time in the summer of 2004.
It was both my duty and my privilege to be able to travel to Cricklewood in London to say Peter’s funeral Mass, to pray the traditional Prayer of Commendation at his cremation and to bring his ashes home for burial with his parents, James and Molly in Ballycastle Cemetery – our home from home.
It was the least I felt I had to do as the sad events of those difficult days were experienced through a constant all pervasive image of the tiny red and green jerseys that Peter and I had worn with such pride as nine-year-olds all those years earlier in the fields behind our homes where we imagined with utmost confidence a childish dream that one day we would star with Mayo in Croke Park on All-Ireland day.
, William Butler Yeats wrote, .
Peter’s memorial card has the words:
My thoughts will be with him on Saturday next as we both cheer for Mayo.
