Ten things Mayo GAA fans can finally say goodbye to...
Noel Morrin, who works in McCormack's Butchers on Bridge Street in Westport with the Sam Maguire Cup on the Tuesday after the All-Ireland Final. Noel was happy to get his hands on the Sam Maguire as a great tribute to his late brother-in-law Martin Leneghan and first cousin Bosco Morrin who were huge Mayo supporters.
Given that the so-called ‘curse’ only entered circulation in the early 2000s, some 50 years after it apparently happened, it always deserved scorn.
Sadly, what happened was too many started to believe it and the reprehensible question kept appearing – ‘how many of them are left now?’ To reduce a team of champions to lives people wanted to wish away was disgusting. Worse still, plenty of those giving it credence were from this county.
It was an absolute honour to interview Paddy Prendergast at the family home in Cranmore, Ballintubber in 2013. However, in the aftermath, to hear so many ask as if it were funny about how long I thought he might live was hard to stomach.
Paddy and his teammates always wanted the candle to be passed on. Now it has been, and forever more they should be remembered as the great champions they were.
Hearing people from other counties poke fun at Mayo, even when their own counties hadn't been near an All-Ireland final, was grating. Most of the time you had to suck it up.
I always found it amusing that some Dublin fans, particularly on social media, would refer to us as ‘bottlers’, which kinda undermines any argument that their six-in-a-row team were the best of all time when we were the county that ran them closest.
Perhaps they were only an average team? Nah. They were exceptional and so were that Mayo team of 2016/17.
But these things are more frequently judged on the basis of history being written by the winners. Which, now, we are.
As Andy Moran said at the homecoming in Castlebar, there is no more of us being laughed or sneered at.
Seeing Rory McIlroy losing a Masters’ before last year and being festooned with a Mayo jersey or the England team wearing them after their latest big tournament failure was hard to take. With artificial intelligence, it made it easier for people with very unoriginal ideas to parade them on social media.
It was worse when they were shared by Mayo people. Some of those now celebrating had been very quick to laugh at and abuse Mayo players over the years.
'Mayo for Sam' posters appearing all over the world deserve a mention too. It was funny to start with but the joke had long since gone stale.
Plenty of national media journalists have always been drawn to Mayo as a story and the vast majority of them wrote pieces that were insightful and fair.
But a good few crossed the line in terms of what is acceptable too and our senior footballers and managers became an easy punching bag.
A very fair-minded piece by Keith Duggan in in 2017 entitled ‘the outrageous crime of being Aidan O’Shea’ explored the torrential abuse the Breaffy man received in the media and in Mayo itself.
Eamonn Sweeney in the in 2017 wrote a terrible piece titled ‘Lions led by donkeys’, a hostile and disparaging diatribe towards the Mayo management led by Stephen Rochford for putting O’Shea at full-back on Kieran Donaghy.
Former Meath footballer Bernard Flynn invited heavy abuse at O’Shea’s door when he lambasted him for having the temerity to sign autographs and pose for photos with adoring young fans after a challenge game.
Andy Moran himself has been on the receiving end of plenty of hostile words in the national media too as have Lee Keegan, Alan Dillon, Rob Hennelly, Ciarán McDonald and many more.
Now that Moran and his players have delivered one of the greatest All-Irelands in living memory, we think the page has turned. It shouldn’t have mattered whether Mayo had an All-Ireland or not but now that we do, perhaps the coverage can be more even handed.
We didn’t really know how much the burden of All-Ireland finals sat on us until we were liberated on July 26. That being said, the Friday before the final, I said to my wife how much I yearned for the first All-Ireland final after we crossed the Rubicon so I could have a normal level of tension and anxiety before a final and not this overwhelming pit of anxiety in my chest that felt very unhealthy!
Travelling up that day felt like an ordeal. I only got four hours sleep on the Saturday night and briefly considered not going – was it worth the stress? Thankfully, duty took over.
Now that we have been liberated, we can enjoy games with something approaching normality, without the fear and dread that had started to accompany too many of us.
Many were well intentioned but, I have to admit, something that was starting to grate was people from other counties telling us they hoped Mayo would cross the line some day. The talk of being people’s second favourite team never quite washed. Some of it was patronising.
As a player said to me in the aftermath, it would be great to be hated for a change!
The outpouring of joy for us all over the country was genuinely lovely but no more will we have to hear people with a mixture of sympathy and amusement asking us ‘will ye ever do it?’ Our collective identity was so inextricably linked with our All-Ireland failures. Now, it’s a new dawn.
It has been some journey and the destination has been incredible. But it took a huge toll on players, managers, board officers and fans. It became all-consuming and, with that, we probably lost sight of the need for an overarching vision of how we wanted to progress on and off the field. Twenty years ago it wasn’t all about Sam but, by this year, it certainly was. Obsessions can be dangerous and get in the way of proper, sustainable progress. Now we’re liberated and, with very different headspaces, we can look at everything in a better light.
I’m speaking personally here but I was rooting for Galway in 1998 and in 2001. By the time they got to the All-Ireland final in 2022 though, I was in a different headspace.
Could they really just swan up and win one after all our near misses? I had a chat with myself that morning that I needed to be the bigger person and support our western brethren. I had every intention of doing so but, when the ball was thrown in, a primal side of me took over and I, almost involuntarily, shouted for Kerry. It showed me the bitterness and hurt that had taken hold. I’m looking forward to being the better person again next time Galway make the final against anyone but us. I’ll get back to you about Roscommon …
For those of us in our 40s, that might have been a stretch but I think, after the final, deep down, a lot of us realised that we had grave doubts, excuse the pun. For those of an older generation, that feeling was even more pronounced.
As Mayo fans I knew reached particular milestones - 70th birthdays, 80th birthdays and beyond - one of the first thoughts that would enter my head was whether they would live to see a Mayo captain walk up the Hogan Stand steps.
Sadly, it came too late for many great fans but the joy of all of those who thought they wouldn’t see it and got to experience it was heavenly. We lived to see it and it was glorious.
I won’t hear too many complaints about this song. Hearing it 15 minutes before throw-in at Croke Park was magnificent. The energy that surged through the place was remarkable. Kudos to whoever pulled the stunt to play it and give Mayo an extra edge. We sang it loud and proud afterwards too and it will always have resonance when we think of 2026. But ‘to win just once would be enough’? Nope, now that we have the taste for it, we’re only getting started!
