‘Me and my best friend Jack’ (part 2)
On Sunday 17 September 2017, I took my Mayo grandson, then aged 10, to his first All-Ireland football final. I remember writing the following week’s YCBS relating the story of the feelings we both experienced in the course of that game and the ‘downer’ that followed. I wrote it under the heading of ‘Me and my best friend, Jack’.
Jack, with the naivety of a 10-year-old and his limitless faith in his granddad, felt certain that Mayo would win. Fifty thousand Mayo supporters also dared to believe one more time, but not with quite the same conviction as my grandson! Jack, decked out in his new Mayo top, (a present from his mother) was too young to realise that being a Mayo fan had more to do with heartbreak, hard luck, pain and disappointment than any other emotion.
Once again, Mayo came up short by a single point to the great Dublin team, 1-17 to 1-16. Near the end, a questionable call by the referee gifted Dublin a score and with that, a big Mayo man behind us, up until that point reasonable and measured, but now seeing it all drifting away one more time, lost it! He stood up and lit up the place with some choice language. As the aggrieved supporter sat down, Jack, with a quiver in his voice, leaned over to me and delivered this gem: ‘Grandad, if I was allowed to swear, that’s what I’d be saying now!’
I took Jack to Croke Park again last Sunday week. A lot has changed in those nine years. A much larger Jersey and the grandfather now has to look up at the grandson. Yes, things much different this time around; and while we were heading for Dublin, Jack’s mother had her cherished Mayo flag waving gently from her grave in Killulagh.
The commentators, the pundits, the Kerry people, the neutrals, and in truth, most Mayo supporters could see nothing other than another sad Mayo day. That was in the head, but the hearts kept pumping hope into the hundreds of thousands of sports lovers and exiles all over the world who craved to see just one Mayo win. Mayo had become everyone’s favourite second team. But after what happened to my other favourite team, Galway hurlers, the previous Sunday I feared the worst.
Jack and I sat in the same two seats as in 2017. We were getting constant messages including one from a great Mayo friend who travels from abroad for every Mayo visit to Croker. I used always meet Mick after the matches and there wouldn’t be a word out of him due to disappointment. He will tell you that I always said the same thing. ‘We’ll stay at it till we get it right!’ And yes, Mayo stayed at it.
The records will show that despite the dire predictions, the weight of history and daunting odds, on the last Sunday of July 2026, after getting it wrong for 75 years, Mayo finally got it right!
As a Westmeath man, my greatest days in Croke Park were naturally those involving my own county, but I have never experienced anything like Mayo’s victory last Sunday – and I have been attending All-Irelands since 1961. Apart altogether from a great football match, there was something almost spiritual about the day. I have never been aware of so many people praying during a match or as many crying afterwards… and fair play to the tremendous sports generosity of the Kerry fans who remained until after the presentation.
What do I mean when I say spiritual? Well, I’ll tell you. If you think this was ‘just a football match’, you are missing more than a point and you know nothing about Mayo.
When my late friend, Ballaghadarreen man John O’Mahony, was honoured along with the Galway silver jubilee team before the match, his wife Geraldine, standing in for ‘Jonno’, received the loudest applause up to that point. In his post match interview, Mayo manager, Andy Moran, disclosed that on 68 minutes in the match, he looked up to heaven and asked ‘Jonno’ to help them over the line.
GAA president Jarlath Burns said in his presentation that Mayo had prayed for years for deliverance to ‘Our Lady of Knock’. On the morning of the match, which also happened to be Reek Sunday, that wonderful Westport priest, Fr Kenny, carried a Mayo flag to the top of Croagh Patrick for Mass. Hundreds of candles were left burning, not only in Mayo, but across the world. Who is to say that all of the above didn’t help the cause, but if divine intervention was the key, we, in our house, know the real reason for Mayo defying what was to have been an inevitable big beating.
Jack’s mother spent all of her adult life in Mayo. She loved Westport and that town took her to its heart and loved her in return. They can say whatever they like, but we know that Olga fixed this one for Mayo. Ask me or my best friend, Jack…!
Don’t Forget
Doubt makes the mountain which faith can move.