Mayo prodigy gives first interview since landing in Melbourne

The All-Ireland winning Under 21 manager was Longford boss for two seasons

Conor Mortimer’s new club on the receiving end of a 43-point defeat in Kildare championship

SENIOR  Group 4  Breaffy 0-22 Ballaghaderreen 0-12  Breaffy kicked seven two-pointers, with the pick of the orange flags an audacious effort from Aidan O’Shea from the sideline, as they ...

The idea of reaching more places on Friday came from the players during Thursday’s magical maelstrom. They were wrecked but they felt a responsibility.

SENIOR  Group 1  Westport 1-30 Charlestown Sarsfields 1-11  It was a special day for Westport, who were playing at their new pitch in Jack Kenny Park for the first time.

Well. Where does one start? It has all been said in the wonderful Western People All-Ireland special edition.

The heartache of 2021 has melted away for Ryan O’Donoghue’s parents, Michael and Brenda, writes Edwin McGreal.

Words do not really do any of it justice, but here are some of my observations in the aftermath of an amazing time revelling in the glory of Mayo's All-Ireland SFC victory. 1. Andy wears the crown well.

How was it for you?We had always wondered what the aftermath of an All-Ireland SFC Final victory might look like. I think it’s safe to say it’s been beyond anything we could ever have imagined.

Where one game had a distinct lack of drama, the other more than made up for it as the Mayo Senior Football Championship began yesterday (Friday) evening.

Mayo Ladies Gaelic Football Association (Mayo LGFA) and AbbVie have announced a new three-year title sponsorship that will see Mayo's adult championship carry the AbbVie name from the 2026 season through to 2028.

 Kobe McDonald has touched down in Australia to join his new teammates at St Kilda. The Crossmolina teenager has spent his first day with the club after jetting off to Melbourne with his parents following Mayo’s All-Ireland triumph.

EGAN JEWELLERS MAYO IFC ROUND 1 PREVIEW  Group 1  The intermediate championship will throw-in on Saturday afternoon with a trilogy meeting in the group stages of Parke Keelogues Crimlin and Kiltane.

 Mayo star Ryan O’Donohue is never likely to be asked where the North Mayo town is ever again after his All-Ireland heroics. The Erris ace is intensely proud of where he comes from. “When I played soccer for Ireland, I was kind of disrespected.

Mayo’s Ryan O’Donoghue and Limerick’s Gearóid Hegarty are named the PwC GAA/GPA Footballer and Hurler of the Month for July, while Kerry’s Síofra O'Shea and Galway’s Ciara Hickey are the winners of the PwC GPA Women’s Player of the Month awards for ...

CONNACHT GOLD MAYO SFC ROUND 1PREVIEW  Group 1  Saturday evening sees both Group 1 games unfold within roughly four and a half miles of each other, with all four teams having different ambitions.

Mayo GAA has thanked star forward Kobe McDonald as the Crossmolina ace embarks on his Australian adventure. In his debut season, the teenage sensation helped deliver Sam Maguire for Mayo for the first time since 1951.

Treanlaur Catering Mayo JFC G3 R1  Tourmakeady 3-18  Eastern Gaels 2-14  Stuart Tynan at Páirc Naomh Mhuire  Tourmakeady claimed the scalp of last year’s junior ‘A’ ...

It summed up Andy Moran’s thinking perfectly. From the throw-in, the sight of Eoin McGreal heading in the direction of Paudie Clifford caught almost all of us off guard. The job was seen as a two-horse race between Enda Hession and Sam Callinan.

The stars were aligned for us Mayos in 2026 but many didn’t see them. Knock Basilica celebrated its Golden jubilee, Knock Airport its Ruby anniversary, and a Ballyhaunis man, Jack Coyne captained the Mayo team.

“Unreal is the only word. ” It is not just a word that Donnacha McHugh used on multiple occasion when speaking to the assembled media after the All-Ireland final, but anyone connected to Mayo was uttering it as the 75-year famine ended last Sunday.

Sometimes, it is hell getting to heaven and Mayo have had their fair share of experiences of the former.

Of the many images that are etched in the memory bank from last Sunday, one predominates above all others. It is of the moments before referee Martin McNally threw in the ball and the two teams were breaking away from their respective huddles.

Visualisation is a technique that Jordan Flynn has always used in his career. But not even he could foresee the moment and feeling of Mayo ending their All-Ireland final hoodoo at 5. 10pm last Sunday.

What has been one of the best football championships we’ve ever seen got the ending it deserved. Regardless of where you’re from, it’s hard not to feel the significance of watching history being made before your very eyes.

The dust hasn't yet settled on Mayo's win in Croke Park last Sunday, and already there is National titles on the line for a Mayo competitor this weekend.

At times he can be confused with Tommy ‘Goals’ Conroy, his namesake from Kiltane.

At 63 minutes and 12 seconds, the crossbar made the most Mayo sound imaginable. Jordan Flynn had done almost everything right.

The Harvest of September ‘51  Was reaped by Mayo  Stooked and stacked  For the winter ahead  As done in ’50 too.

No, we didn't call the baby Sam or Kobe.

Ryan O’Donoghue wasn’t the only teary eyed Mayo person in Croke Park on Sunday. In fact, he was the rule, not the exception.

26. 7. 26. A day that not only ended one of longest droughts in sport, but the day that has changed Mayo GAA forever. I have to hold my hands up and say that when I left Castlebar on Sunday morning, I did not think it would happen.

How was it for you?A moment, a day, we have all yearned for. A day many of us were beginning to worry we might not live to see. Even Lee Keegan, that most positive, upbeat of Mayo men admitted as much.

Oh the Green and Red of Mayo  I can see it still  Its soft and craggy boglands  Its tall majestic hills  Where the ocean kisses Ireland  ...

69 minutes, 10 seconds Less than one minute on the clock. Seventy-five years in the making. From 45 metres, Seán O’Shea kicks it high into the sky. All over Croke Park, Mayo hearts are in mouths.

‘The Championship,' someone wrote, ‘has romance sewn into its centre’ and last week Mayo people, at home and across the world, felt the texture of that wisdom.

Deliverance at last. Christopher Nolan’s summer blockbuster The Odyssey is tipped to be one of the biggest movies of all time, grossing over $1 billion. That Greek classic has nothing on our own 75-year saga.

Now that it’s happened, how to capture it?That was the challenge laid down to the Western People in the hours between full-time and print deadline last Monday evening.

The Mayo senior, intermediate and junior club football championships are to proceed as planned, despite the county's All-Ireland SFC Final victory last Sunday.

Former Mayo star Oisin Mullin confirmed he did speak to Andy Moran about returning to the county fold ahead of the All-Ireland final.

Mayo Premier Junior A Championship Semi Final  Knockmore ‘B 0-20  Ballina Stephenites ‘B’ 0-16  Kian Boland at St Josephs Park, Knockmore  Knockmore’s junior team ...

Mayo Junior A Hurling Championship Final  Tooreen ‘B’ 3-15  Moytura 2-15  Stuart Tynan at Hastings Insurance MacHale Park  A brave second half fightback by Moytura ...

Both Mayo and Kerry have made late changes for this afternoon's All-Ireland SFC Final. Paul Towey and Diarmuid O'Connor are both in for Andy Moran's side in place of Stephen Coen and Conor Loftus on the half-forward line.

20 years ago, before the 2006 Mayo v Kerry All-Ireland SFC Final, former double All-Ireland winner and then recently crowned Mayo Sports Stars Hall of Fame recipient, Eamonn Mongey wrote in the Western People about what made the great Mayo team of the late ‘40s and early ‘50s so formidable.

To see the flags flying, the jerseys hanging out on clothes lines and to be having the chats to people on the street about Mayo football again is a positive feeling that can only feed back into the team, writes Paul O’Malley.

In what has been a packed sporting summer thus far, Wimbledon travelled slightly under the radar.

One of Mayo football’s most famous fans believes this could finally be Mayo’s year. Castlebar publican Mick Byrne has become synonymous without the county’s GAA side and their fortunes.

We owe Roscommon a debt of gratitude. Not just the seniors for their chastising defeat of Mayo in the Connacht semi-final and the introspection that forced. But their Under 20s too for their surprise win over a highly rated Mayo side three days later.

It’s not that long since a Gaelic football discussion lit up social media. It wasn't yet another tedious debate about championship structures, or the intercounty calendar, or refereeing, or the 'new' rules that really aren't that new anymore.

Mikey O’Toole from Inishturk and Clare Island’s Pádraic O’Malley are two of Mayo’s greatest supporters, of that there can be no doubt, writes Edwin McGreal.

Sunday's All-Ireland SFC Final between Mayo and Kerry is to be refereed by Martin McNally of Corduff. It's the Monaghan official's first ever senior final.

Thrum. Thrum. Thrum. Every kingdom hears the drums. At first they are little more than an echo beyond the hills, carried on a wind that has witnessed a hundred failed rebellions before.

In December 2015, just a couple of months after their revolt against the management of Pat Holmes and Noel Connelly, the Mayo senior football panel assembled for a meeting with their new manager Stephen Rochford.

Few men are better placed to analyse next Sunday’s clash of Mayo and Kerry than John Cleary who has managed against both in this year’s championship but whose roots are laced in green and red, writes Kevin Egan

Edwin McGreal explores the areas where the All-Ireland final could be won and lost.

The task facing Mayo is monumental on Sunday. Not since 1965 when Galway completed the second of their three-in-a-row has Kerry lost an All-Ireland Senior Football Final to a team from Connacht.

“Does anyone here think we’re going to win the All-Ireland final?” Unlike in the Croke Park press room, you’ll find few, if anyone, in the printed and online pages of the Western People this week backing against Mayo on Sunday.

From a family steeped in football pedigree, Jack Carney is of the belief that the culture within the Mayo squad, where every player is so connected and working off the same ‘hymn sheet’, is something hard to experience in any other walk of life, writes Stuart Tynan.

Charlestown native Conor O’Donoghue was on the receiving end when lining out against his native county for London in the very first game of this season’s senior football championship. He’s been speaking to Fiona Halligan.

Mayo players are not chasing Sam Maguire next Sunday. They’re chasing a performance. If Mayo can reach the performance levels of the Louth semi-final, then they will give Kerry a right rattle.

Edwin McGreal explores five sporting miracles that prove the impossible can happen

As Mayo football rightly fans “go nuts” this week and the county paints itself green and red, my mind – and I’m sure the minds of many friends, neighbours, and old clubmates – is drawn to memories of an adopted North Mayo Kerryman who would have ...

The four players ready to step into the breach should there be a late withdrawal from the Mayo senior football panel for Sunday’s All-Ireland SFC Final have been revealed – and they contain a mixture of youth and experience.

Family and friends of Mayo stars Ryan O’Donoghue and Seamus Howard were bursting with pride as they gathered in their local bar in Glencastle and showcased the incredible community support for their homegrown heroes.

AbbVie Mayo SFL Division 6 Final  Hollymount-Carramore ‘B’ 2-6  Westport ‘C’ 0-11  Stuart Tynan at Hastings Insurance MacHale Park Hollymount-Carramore ‘B’ survived ...

Mayo manager Andy Moran has made one change to the team for Sunday’s All-Ireland SFC Final against Kerry.

No place has been found in the Kerry team for captain Paul Geaney, as manager Jack O’Connor has decided to name an unchanged team for Sunday’s All-Ireland SFC Final against Mayo.

There are several of the current Mayo GAA panel who have excelled on the soccer pitch over the years.

When people think of the Irish diaspora in North America, they tend to think of New York, Boston, Chicago and Vancouver – but Toronto has a pretty sizeable Irish community of its own, and that always comes to bear this time of year as the ...

Paddy Nyland was five years older than Kobe McDonald is now when he stood on the terraces to watch Mayo’s last All-Ireland SFC title win in 1951, writes Fiona Halligan

There was an Ardnaree connection to Limerick’s recapturing of the Liam MacCarthy Cup last Sunday.

On the eve of next weekend’s All-Ireland SFC Final, Ardnaree Sarsfields GAA are to host a special day of football, music and fun in memory of one of Mayo’s greatest players who came from their community.

Belmullet GAA club is buzzing as two of their own endeavour to return Sam Maguire to Erris. The community is putting its considerable support behind Ryan O’Donogue and Seamus Howard ahead of the All-Ireland Final showdown with Kerry.

It is 30 years since Colm McManamon was instrumental in Mayo beating Kerry in the 1996 All-Ireland semi-final. He’s been remembering those days – and his sojourn with Australian Rules Football – with Edwin McGreal.

The excitement of Mayo reaching another All-Ireland Final is set to bring droves of enthusiastic diaspora supporters flocking home to Ireland to be here for the special occasion.

The town and the dual club of Ballyhaunis are rallying behind their clubmate Jack Coyne as he prepares to lead Mayo out at Croke Park this Sunday for the All-Ireland Final.

Four Mayo men ‘exiled’ in Kerry have shared their thoughts on what it’s like being a Mayo fan while camped in the Kingdom. You might look at the Kerry GAA crest a little differently on Sunday once you learn that it was designed by a Mayo man.

AbbVie Mayo SFL Division 4 Final  Lahardane MacHales 2-16  Westport ‘B’ 1-13  Kian Boland at Hastings Insurance MacHale Park  The second game in Saturday's triple ...

See all the latest stories, analysis, interviews, videos and photos in the buildup to the All-Ireland final

AbbVie Mayo SFL Division 3 Final  Ardnaree Sarsfields 2-14  Kilmeena 0-14  Stuart Tynan at Hastings Insurance MacHale Park A goal in each half would be the ...

The boots of Mayo All-Ireland football winning legend Paddy Prendergast sit proudly on display in Donegal pub

Legendary New York GAA figure has always maintained a strong link to his home in Mayo

A week out from Mayo's latest attempt to bring home Sam, Mayo GAA Handball had a day of success that can only be seen as a good omen for the week to come

AbbVie Mayo SFL Division 1 Final  Ballina Stephenites 3-18  Westport 3-14  Stuart Tynan at Hastings Insurance MacHale Park  Yet again, a meeting of Ballina ...

There are 67 minutes on the clock and Mayo lead 3-20 to 0-13. It is long past being over. Dara McDonnell works the ball back to Ciarán Downey outside the two-point arc. Ryan O’Donoghue is 15 metres away, well inside the arc. It is a lost cause.

The 2026 All-Ireland SFC Final will take place on July 26 featuring Mayo and Kerry.

Mayo must surely be the only team in history to win an All-Ireland semi-final by 17 points and yet still go into the final as rank outsiders. But then it has been a strange old championship.

Every championship has a favourite. Every championship has a story. And every so often, it has a team that nobody quite notices until it's standing in the tunnel on All-Ireland final day. Mayo have spent the last month quietly becoming that team.

We were treated to liquid football in GAA HQ on Saturday night and a serious statement of intent from this rapidly improving Mayo side. I cannot remember a more comprehensive or impressive Mayo display in Croke Park.

While the split season has generated much debate in virtually every quarter over the last number of years, there’s one thing we can surely all agree on.

Traditionally, following Mayo GAA comes with a health warning even at the best of times, so when I turned to our sports editor Anthony Hennigan with 25 minutes to go in the Croke Park press area to say “Louth are gone”, he would have been well ...

John Shevlin is well-known for driving the 'Up Mayo' green and red car.

Excitement might be building right across the county following Mayo’s qualification for the All-Ireland Senior Football Final but before all that, there are plenty other finals of serious concern to be taken care of locally as the Mayo Senior ...

It will be his first senior inter-county championship final.