One minute to heaven
Kobe McDonald celebrates Tommy Conroy's decisive late point in Mayo's All-Ireland SFC Final win against Kerry last Sunday. Picture: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile
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.
O’Shea has struck a timeless kick into the Hill 16 end before. Kerry are going for a two-pointer to deny Mayo our greatest day.
It floats towards goal.
Jack Livingstone is watching it intently. A Breaffy man, he has watched his local heroes try to cross this line before.
He was just eleven in 2013 when Mayo lost by a single point. His hero then was Rob Hennelly, a player who suffered more than his fair share of heartbreak on the biggest day.
Now, in 2026, Livingstone has taken over the number one jersey from Hennelly. He has excelled but he has one more big moment to deal with.
Several Mayo goalkeepers came agonisingly close to lifting Sam.
Hennelly and his great rival David Clarke. Go back to 1989 and Gabriel Irwin and Eugene Lavin. John Madden and Peter Burke.
Can Livingstone go one step closer?
At the goal where John Madden agonisingly watched as a freak kick from Colm Coyle hopped over the bar to level the 1996 final, Mayo are closer than they have ever been since then.
They led by five with just over five minutes to go. But the lead is slipping with the end in sight.
David Clifford has already kicked an outrageous two-pointer and his brother Paudie kicked a single. O’Shea’s shot isn’t going to make it. But that brings its own danger. Fail to deal with it properly and it could turn into a goal – perish the thought.
Livingstone never takes his gaze off it and, under pressure from Evan Looney, breaks the ball down to his left.
No goal, no two pointer. But the ball is still perilously close to the Mayo goal.
Jack Carney pounces on the loose ball. The Kilmeena man knows what it takes to win an All-Ireland in Croke Park, and against Kerry opposition. His finest hour was his tour-de-force in the 2022 All-Ireland Junior Club final against Gneeveguilla. Is it about to be eclipsed?
Like all the Mayo players, he was a fan before he graced Croke Park, travelling with his parents and family to the big days, reared on Mayo GAA in a football-mad house, fed on the diet of the team of a decade ago who brought Mayo closer to the summit than ever before and laid the foundation for this group.
Carney is fully focused and reacts fastest to the danger, getting the ball off to Donnacha McHugh.
Can McHugh join such Mitchels heroes such as Kenny, Flannelly, Quinn, Burke, Moclair and Flanagan and win an All-Ireland with Mayo?
McHugh ships the ball back to Carney. Is it a time for keep ball and trying to run down the clock? Kerry have nine players within 20 yards of Carney. Mayo are very vulnerable to a high press if they choose to play keep ball. The ball couldn’t be in better hands.
Carney sees a pass most wouldn’t attempt at this stage of the game. So many Kerry bodies close means some Mayo players have to be unmarked. Carney sights David McBrien in space around halfway. Few players would kick in this moment but it is the right play.
Carney backs his skills. Unsurprisingly, he executes a 45-metre outside-of-the-boot pass perfectly and it is the kick that finally seals the deal.
McBrien gratefully receives it. Mayo are out and defence has been turned into attack thanks to Carney’s vision and execution.
McBrien is a proud son of Ballagh’. Johnno, Noel Durkin, Kevin Cahill, Andy Moran. All men who knew the pain of defeat on this day.
Johnno told us to keep the faith. How we have lived that phrase. What a pity he didn’t live to see it.
Andy Moran is the man guiding this team and Johnno was his guiding light. On the sideline, Moran says a prayer.
“Johnno, if I need you, it’s now.”
McBrien and his colleagues haven’t endured all the losses - most of them were born after the millennium. But the weight of history of those defeats is a burden they inherit. It rests amazingly lightly on their shoulders.
We see it in this minute. Andy Moran’s prayers are being answered.
McBrien lays it off to Kobe McDonald. All day long Kobe has been looking for responsibility. How is this fella only 18 years of age? He is old enough by less than a month to play senior inter-county this year. We nearly didn’t have him.
His father gave us some of our greatest days. Anyone in Croke Park for the 2006 All-Ireland semi-final win over Dublin will never forget it. It remains one of the great Mayo days. The distinctive wag of the finger.
But Ciarán knew too the toll of All-Ireland final defeats, especially against Kerry. He knew too that not every Mayo fan was gracious when things didn’t go to plan and suffered some horrible grief and abuse in a world before social media.
He came back. And his son has been central to Mayo’s liberation. We might only have him for one year but what a year he has given us.
Kobe offloads to Ryan O’Donoghue. How could he not be on the ball in this moment? He has been everywhere today. Sheer force of will can do great things.
In 1989, a Belmullet great kicked the first score in an All-Ireland final since 1951. Willie Joe Padden was the icon of that breakthrough team. We didn’t think that September day after we fell to Cork that we would be waiting 37 years for deliverance.
Padden and all the Mayo players before and since left the jersey in a better place for the next generation. So that we could be on the brink of days like this.
And now O’Donoghue is about to be the man. Man of the match in arguably Mayo’s three last games. Definitely in the final.
He does his wonderful deceleration and turn around to offload the ball back to Kobe.
Kerry players converge. Less confident players would look for a backwards handpass. McDonald spots a gap and drives through the cover.
Mayo will finish on the front foot, summing up their bravery on this great day.
McDonald passes to Tommy Conroy. In 2021, Conroy was a man for the future. Not long out of under 20. But like so many, there were scars for him in that final. He missed a goal chance he would normally convert.
Injury has blighted his Mayo career since.
But when Mayo returned to Croke Park, Conroy had escaped the depths of injury despair and was raring to go at just the right time.
He breaks through on goal. He could go for goal. He could square to the in-rushing McDonald.
Instead, he does the sensible thing and fists over. With it, he banishes the ghosts of 2021. And so many more before then.
Mayo lead by three. Kerry surely cannot have enough time to get up the field for a goal.
Shane Murphy gets the short kick-out off. In the middle of the field Darragh Beirne pushes a Kerry player to the ground. This is no time for niceties. We vividly recall almost every Dublin player fouling Mayo players on a kick-out from the same end at the conclusion of the 2017 final.
Beirne is the first Claremorris player to start in an All-Ireland final since the Maher brothers in 1989. The late Greg Maher is one of hundreds, nay thousands of our dearly departed in our hearts and minds right now.
Beirne played with freedom. His goal was a thing of beauty. In our seats five rows back from the pitch in the Lower Davin, we could hear the strike of the ball and, I think, the net ripple.
It ends with a tackle. Fittingly. Mayo were so full of energy all day long and Kerry couldn’t cope with their intensity. So it was very apt that the final second of the game saw Jack Carney and Jordan Flynn double up to tackle Seán O’Shea and stop him in his tracks.
The hooter sounds.
Deliverance.
We lived to see it.
