John Arnold: Music to my ears as I witness Mayo end 75-year heartbreak
Mayo’s Sam Callinan lifts the Sam Maguire cup on Sunday after winning the All-Ireland Football Championship. Picture: INPHO/James Crombie
In the Hogan Stand, he was deep in conversation with friends from South Armagh - and they weren’t discussing the upcoming football final. No, they had serious talk about Dromintee, and Silverbridge and Crossmaglen - grass-roots GAA men discussing club football in the Orchard County.
Sunday last was a milestone day for the Silverbridge Harps club man. Coming to the end of his term as GAA President, Jarlath had presented the Liam MacCarthy Cup to players from Clare, Tipperary and Limerick. Already, he has had the unique pleasure of handing Sam Maguire to his own beloved Armagh and to Kerry last year.
Last Sunday, then, was his final major cup hand-over to either Kerry - again - or Mayo - after a gap of 75 years.
I think last Sunday was my 106th All Ireland Final - I first started going in 1972 but I’ve missed a few in both codes since then.
In truth, I loved the September Sundays even more, but I have to accept change - though I fear not all change is beneficial.
But let me forget those minor irritants in my sporting life. What a game we were lucky to see last Sunday - in fairness, enough has been written about the match itself and I’m certain there will be several books out by Christmas. I’m not going to add further column inches in praise of a game that’ll be talked about for many a day - even when it’s Moonlight in Mayo.
About a week or ten days before the match, I passed through Castletownroche, and as I crossed over that old rustic bridge by the mill, I thought of T.P. Keenan who is buried there on the hillside cemetery of St Mary’s. A brilliant actor and songwriter, Keenan died in 1927 and hopefully next year his centenary will be well celebrated.
After Jarlath was elected GAA President above in Croke Park, I sang and was privileged a few months later to be a guest in Silverbridge GAA Club -we gave it a rousing rendition that night!
Well, that Armagh ‘anthem’ was written by TP Keenan, along with other old Irish classics like
Another great Irish song written by Keenan was always regarded as a ballad of emigration and love of homeland. Few songwriters could get the names of 23 individual town and villages into the lyrics of one song - but Keenan did!
All last week, I was humming Keenan’s to myself - half-wondering, half-thinking, half-hoping that Mayo people might get a chance and a reason to sing the song on Sunday.
To me, Mayo is not just a football team or a county. It’s an example of resilience and resistance and pride when the reasons for those attributes seemed very far away.
Last Sunday was All Ireland Football Sunday, but many hundreds of years before the GAA was ever thought of, the last Sunday in July was Reek Sunday. It’s nearly 25 years since I first climbed Ireland’s Holy Mountain, Croagh Patrick.
For the uninitiated, the climbing of Croagh Patrick can be divided into three ‘sections’. The first part is along a rocky ravine with a stream at the right hand side, and this gradually gives way to a path cut into the side of a hill which you walk gradually, ascending all the time.
Then, when you cross the brow of this hill, you are in the ‘middle’ part of the climb. This is very deceiving, you feel it’s much easier than the start, the path is wider and smoother and it fills you with a false sense of security.
Then, finally, and quite suddenly, you cross a ridge and look up, up and there it is, the summit of Croagh Patrick, rising almost vertically in front of you.
My first reaction on seeing it all those years back was “No way, feck this for a game of cards, that’s impossible, no-one can climb that, goodbye!”
Luckily, I reconsidered and kept going onwards and upwards.
It’s 2,510ft high, but what makes it so difficult is the fact that the last and major climb is like going over loose and moving rocks. For the last seven or eight hundred feet, there is little or no vegetation and very little soil.
Each year, the mountain presents a different challenge. Heavy rain causes mini rock-falls and these craggy, jagged rocks have to be travelled on. Like a mountain goat, one has to pick your way carefully, each step has to be planned and plotted. If you put your foot on a loose stone, it will simply tumble down the mountain.
Well, I did reach the summit of the Holy Mountain on four occasions.
Ah yes - Davy Carton and Leo Moran summed it up well.
We called into Campbell’s unique hostelry at the foot of the mountain before and after the climb.
In recent years, part of the ascent has been made a bit easier with the erection of a set of steps along the path.
It might be somewhat less exerting nowadays, but over the years nothing came easy for the footballers of this rugged County of Mayo. Since I saw Cork beat Galway in the 1973 Final, I have witnessed the men in Red and Green lose 11 finals.
Yes, they were stoic and kept coming back again and again.
Last Sunday, the Kingdom sought the two-in-a-row - Mayo have lost two-in-a-row in 1996/’97, 2012/’13, 2016/’17 and in 2020/’21. Yes, I saw them all and many of those defeats were crushing, soul-destroying losses - games they should and could have won but never did.
Tyrone, Donegal, Armagh and Derry, all came and won with little or no losing legacy behind them.
The defeats kept coming, but just as Mayo people in tough times had to emigrate all over the world for work, the footballers stuck to their task – “So boys stick together in all kinds of weather, don’t show the white feather wherever you go, Oh be like a brother and love one another like true-hearted men from the County Mayo.”
Of course, Kerry wanted to win but in Croke Park last Sunday every Kerry man and woman joined in praise of Mayo. It was a historic, emotional, and magical occasion.
How often Mayo folk trooped down Jones’s Road in silent tears. On Sunday, there were tears also, but of joy, of overflowing passion and pride.
Back in 1992, the Saw Doctors penned The Red And Green of Mayo - TP Keenan’s song won’t be ever forgotten but now Mayo, the All Ireland champions have, at last, experienced ‘that winning feeling’.
I’m looking forward in the coming weeks to seeing the Sam Maguire Cup at the top of Croagh Patrick.
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