All-Ireland Final countdown: An islanders’ journey to Croke Park

Mikey O’Toole can count on one hand the amount of All-Ireland finals he has missed.

And we’re not talking just about finals involving Mayo.

Since 1969, the Inishturk islander has attended almost every All-Ireland football final. It is some achievement for any Gael but especially so for Mikey given the nine kilometres journey across frequently rough seas that bookend either side of his Croke Park journey.

And while he can travel now in the relatively luxury of a one-hour ferry crossing, that only came on board in 1992. For the decades before that, the journey to Roonagh outside Louisburgh was in an open currach with an outboard engine.

The GAA rightly tell us ‘nothing beats being there’. Nobody has lived that slogan quite like Mikey O’Toole.

Indeed, the first All-Ireland final he saw was in Louisburgh in 1966. They had no television on the island so O’Toole and three friends took a currach in and out the same day to watch it in McDermott’s Hotel.

They had an outboard engine and three of them rowed to hasten the journey.

‘We’ll cross the waves together’ is on the island GAA club’s crest. They know what they’re talking about.

They wouldn’t get electricity on the island until 1986 but Mikey was watching football games at home before then. He bought his first TV in 1970 and powered it with a generator.

“The 1985 All-Ireland final was as good a match as I ever was at. Jack O’Shea was absolutely outstanding. He is the best midfielder I ever saw. I’d often be having this argument with Kerry people about who was better – Jack O’Shea or Mick O’Connell. The Kerry people would tend to say O’Connell.

“I saw them both. Mick O’Connell could catch a ball between the two 50s but O’Shea could do that and catch it under his own crossbar too. He covered every blade of grass.

“The 1982 final was another great one. I was in the Nally Stand so I had a great view of Séamus Darby’s goal and his nudge as the ball came in!” 

He can remember the 1970 final well. It was the first and only 80 minute final and he can recall how the nets that day were distinctively black.

Needless to say, he has been at every Mayo All-Ireland final from 1989 onwards.

“I was at every single one of them… 1996 was the one that got away, to be six points up with a few minutes to go but Meath came back and brought it to a replay. The other one that jumps out was 2017, we were about to be a man up and two points up and Donie Vaughan was sent off. I think we’d have won if we kept 15 men on the pitch,” he recalled.

“I would say the full-forward line we have this year is the better than anything I’ve seen before for Mayo. They are taking their scores, they’re young and fearless. They’ve scored 2-36 in two games.” 

He dissects the final and the potential match ups forensically. He recalls the despondency among fans at half-time at the Meath game in Castlebar and marvels at where the season has taken Mayo since.

He has a sharp football brain. He won an Over 40s All-Ireland with Mayo in 1992 and managed Inishturk to a famous All-Island title in 2008.

In earlier years, in bad weather, he sometimes swapped the currach for a lift on a fishing boat.

His routine has changed little: Saturday to Westport, train or bus to Dublin, back to Westport on Sunday night before returning home on the Monday.

He turned 78 in April and though he was three in 1951, he has no memories of it. There are, therefore, few waiting as long as him. What would crossing that threshold mean?

“It would mean an awful lot. We’re 75 years waiting. It is time for it to change. Sam Maguire in Castlebar would be a welcome sight.” 

It is not just the big games this man goes to. I recall talking to him at an FBD game in Ballina in 2016 and asking ‘I assume you’re not going to Cork’ for Mayo’s league opener, assuming the logistics didn’t make sense.

With a glint in his eye he replied, “There’s no point being half mad!” 

Himself and his wife Mary Ann are hoping to go, ‘if we get tickets’.

There’s hardly anyone more deserving.

***** 

Pádraic O’Malley on Clare Island would run him close though. His first All-Ireland semi-final was the 1985 replay against Dublin when Billy Fitzpatrick came on and made history as the oldest player to score in a senior championship game in Croke Park.

For Pádraic and the Clare Islanders, Fitzpatrick’s heroics had a certain resonance.

“We didn't get electricity until 1982. Billy had worked here for the ESB before that and stayed on the island. He was probably the best club forward in Mayo but, inexplicably, wasn't in the county squad.

“He would go down to the beach for a training session and we’d go down and watch him, kicking the ball back to him.” 

The Louth semi-final was the first Mayo All-Ireland semi-final or final he had missed since 1985. Running the shop on Clare Island means getting away isn't always possible.

“Others from here have been far more dedicated than me this year,” he said. But no one on the island would argue that his commitment to supporting Mayo for over 40 years has been exceptional, as well as his passion for nurturing the game on the island which has led to several All-Island titles.

They’ve often made it up and down to Croke Park in a single day.

They hire a boat or get a rib and leave at 6am to get up there in good time and get ‘good, strategic parking’.

As soon as the final whistle sounds, they don’t hang around. They run from their seats and get to the car as quickly as possible to get on the road before the rest of the Mayo traffic.

“It simply wouldn’t work if we were caught bumper to bumper leaving Dublin,” he said.

They typically get back to Roonagh outside Louisburgh at 11pm or maybe later and hire another boat to get across.

“If we’re lucky, we’ll get home in time for a pint in the pub,” he recalls.

All-Ireland finals are different. That is typically a Saturday to Monday trip.

In 2017, he was in the Cusack Stand with a season ticket and his son Ciarán, then aged 14, was in the Hogan Stand with a young cousin from Galway (Inishbofin) in Croke Park for the first time.

“I knew he’d be fine with Ciarán because Ciarán knew Croke Park so well then and he was so taken by his cousin’s reaction to seeing Croke Park for the first time. I don’t think we realise how lucky we are with all the big days we’ve had up there.” 

The travel schedule has occasionally meant leaving before the final whistle and missing big moments. In the replayed 1989 Connacht final, extra-time forced Pádraic and fellow Clare Islander Michael O'Toole onto the road before the finish. Moments later they heard a huge roar.

“Michael said, ‘That’s a Mayo goal’, but we didn't know until a fella with a radio told us Jimmy Burke had scored, the famous pushover try goal.”