The wait was worth it
A Mayo fan shows what 75 years of waiting meanT to him in Croke Park last Sunday. Picture: INPHO/James Crombie
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.
The final whistle in Croke Park on All-Ireland SFC final day and the scoreboard has Mayo in front. A Mayo captain walking up the steps to lift Sam Maguire.
Nobody knew what it could be like. Sure we’ve no protocol for such a moment. It was one of the longest famines in world sport. One of the most enthralling Irish sports stories of all time.
At different stages in the second-half, it felt really on in a way we haven’t experienced, probably since the drawn 1996 final.
Only in that game and in the 2017 final (after Lee Keegan’s goal) have we actually led an All-Ireland in the final quarter.
As competitive as we’ve been in plenty of finals, there were few so within touching distance.
Darragh Beirne’s goal hit the net merely five metres from us. We could hear the contact of boot on leather. I think we heard the ripple of the net too.
You could feel the tidal wave of emotion getting ready to erupt. Plenty of it was leaking out before the end. Was this going to be the day? Could we hold on?
We did and the dam burst. Grown adults wept. Strangers hugged. Children danced, not able to appreciate the length of the journey but knowing by how adults were around them that this was something seismic.
I was there in 1989 as a seven-year-old, lifted over the turnstiles by my father. Thirty-seven years later, I had my nine-year-old daughter with me on this day of days. A memory to last a lifetime.
“Dad, I think you’re too invested in this,” Frankie said to me with a smile with ten minutes to go. She was right but then that’s what those 37 years can do. By the end she was fairly invested in it herself too.
All around us, Mayo people were in a nirvana-like state. Plenty of Kerry fans waited, full of grace and congratulations. It only dawned on us later on that they were witnessing something special too.
Croke Park has probably never seen anything quite like it. It probably won’t ever again.
How was it for you? For me it was everything I thought it would be and then some. An hour of pure, unfiltered ecstasy that may never be experienced again. But what a joy it was to experience it at all. We will keep this with us for the rest of our lives.
All over Croke Park, people did not want to leave. A moment, a day, an occasion we dreamed of for so long, so what the rush in leaving?
Stewards patiently tried to corral us to the exits. Players often talk about the fleeting nature of victory and how you move onto the next challenge. To be a supporter is different – you do not need the same focus. But the ecstasy is fleeting. It is also glorious. A lovely warmth followed.
A people who have suffered far too much on All-Ireland final day in this cathedral finally had their deliverance.
On Jones’ Road, Clonliffe Road and Fairview, Mayos milled around. Almost dazed and confused but in an ecstatic way. We headed in the direction of our cars and transport but any GPS map would show a lot of zigzags as we crossed the roads over and back to hug friends and fellow Mayo fans we knew. And plenty we didn’t know too.
We meet our gang in a chipper in Fairview. The hollering would be embarrassing in any other setting. Here, it is almost involuntary.
The toll bridge in Enfield was never a more pleasant place to be delayed on. We played the soundtrack of songs we had created for such a day. The Green and Red of Mayo, To Win Just Once, The Boys from the County Mayo, Sunshine on Leith, Freed from Desire.
Sunday night in Castlebar and as we drive up the Main Street, it is like Italia 90 on steroids. Hundreds of people line the street on both sides and their joy is unconfined.
We said we couldn’t imagine what the county would be like if we ever got over the line. Now we are living it. Soak it in.
Monday morning and where we live in Dooega, if you cannot see Clare Island, it means it is a bad day. Clare Island is blocked by mist and fog. But no weather forecast will dampen our spirits.
The slightest thing can set you off. Seeing a friend, thinking of a family member, watching a social media video.
Ryan O’Donoghue lifting the cup backed to Pavarotti wasn’t something I thought I would ever see. My God, it was a powerful clip and so many more.
So much to process, so little time.
The late, great Paddy Prendergast often lamented of his own, personal Via Dolorosa (way of grief), the path Christ walked with the crucifix in Jerusalem, as he followed the Mayo footballers after his team of 1950 and ’51 lifted Sam. He yearned to see the torch passed.
Now those legends can rest.
A new generation of All-Ireland champions reside in Mayo.
The wait was worth it.
