Mayo’s Gaelic football team has ended a 75-year losing streak after winning the All Ireland championship, end an apparent curse that fans believed haunted the county for decades.
Fans were stunned as they emerged from the home of Ireland’s Gaelic games, Dublin’s Croke Park, with some putting the win down to the expired curse – and the county’s young superstar players.
The Mayo Gaelic football team is regarded as one of the best in the country but has repeatedly fallen short of winning the top prize of the Sam Maguire Cup in the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship.
Many said they were not sure how to celebrate their win in the final against Kerry, by 1-20 to 1-17, as they hugged people outside the stadium and called family members.
The repeated final losses have seen the hopeful mantra of “Mayo for SAM” gain prominence, referring to the Sam Maguire Cup, which has been chanted by high-profile figures including former US president Joe Biden during a visit to his ancestral home county of Mayo.
Mayo has not won the cup in 75 years despite reaching the final 11 times since 1989.
The green-and-red team has lost by one point in three finals since it last won the championship in 1951.
The loses have been put down to a myth that the 1951 winning team had not shown respect to a funeral they passed on their homecoming route.
It is said a relative of the dead person placed a curse on Mayo that the county would not win the Sam Maguire until every member of the 1951 team had died.
It was reported that the last surviving member of the 1951 team died in 2021.
The so-called curse has been criticised as not showing respect to the 1951 team, the facts behind the story have also been questioned, while others dismissed it as a convenient excuse for poor performance.
But some fans did believe there was a curse on their home county’s footballing chances.
A stunned Patrick Devaney, 32, from Knock, wandered outside Croke Park minutes after full time amid a sea of disappointed Kerry fans who had left the stadium.
“I can’t believe it, I’ve seen them lose so many times, I just can’t believe it,” he told the Press Association.
“I’ve been at nearly every other final Mayo were in, so I can’t believe it.
“Twelve finals they’ve lost in my lifetime. I can’t believe it.”
Asked if he thought they would win, he said: “A hail Mary chance, yes. I believed in the curse until about 15 minutes ago.”
Rachel Neeson, who is from Co Antrim but whose family are from Kilmovee, said the win was a “dream come true”.
“We’ve loads of kids back home up in Antrim and we’re now going back home to get them and we’re going down to Mayo this evening.
“They don’t know we’re coming but there’s 10 of us coming down from Antrim.”
“Kerry fans were lovely, turned around and congratulated everybody straight away, it was just lovely, really really lovely.”
She said things “fell into place” on the day: her daughter, whose name is Niamh Neeson, got them the tickets, and they were sitting in row “NN”. It was also Reek Sunday.
“I did believe in the curse. I believe in curses, I believe in cures. Today, they got the cure!”
Paul Murphy and his sons Feidhlim, 11, and Odhran, 13, travelled over from Manchester to watch the final.
Mr Murphy, who said his father is from a small village in Mayo, said his sons are involved with the St Laurence’s club in Manchester and he has gone to many All-Ireland finals over the last 20 years.
“It was amazing when Mayo had won,” Feidhlim said. “They played brilliant, absolutely perfect.”
“For the whole game I thought Kerry were going to win,” Odhran said. “But then at the end when we went up by five, I thought we had the game won.
“I was clapping and really happy,” he said when it hit full-time.
Their father added: “I went into the game with quiet confidence. The first 10 minutes was a killer, I just thought, is it 2004 or 2006 all over again? But then Mayo came back, they stuck at it, they were resilient, they never let it go.
“This is their first all-Ireland final, actually I tell a lie, Odhran came over as a baby in 2013, we weren’t so lucky with that one. But I thought if I brought the two of them it might just change the luck.”
Asked what they planned to do next, he said: “To be honest we don’t know what to do with ourselves. We’re not used to being at the end of a favourable result, frankly. So we’d normally put the heads down and slink away but, it’s all up in the air, who knows? See how the night goes.”
Mattie Joe Connolly and his wife Bernie said youth was the thing that changed Mayo’s fortunes.
He said his grand nephew is Darragh Beirne, the corner forward who scored the goal for Mayo in the final.
“They came here to Croke Park, they weren’t afraid to come here and they weren’t awed by the big ocassion, those young guys,” he said.
“I was living more in hope than anything – after all those years, all-Ireland champions.”
Bernie said they had attended the finals where they had lost but that “today was worth waiting for, it was fantastic”.
Ciaran Ivan and Siobhan Lavelle, 25, watched the match from a nearby pub and said the victory was “surreal”.
“It was unreal, my ears are still ringing and my voice is nearly gone,” she said.
“I had good faith in them to be honest, bit nervous in the first half but by the time the bell rang, we were onto a good one.”
Mr Ivan said the manager was the winning touch for the team and said the team “did very well”.
“There will be a week-long session I’d say, at least. Mayo for SAM!”
In a heart-thumping victory speech to a Corke Park packed with Mayo fans, captain Jack Coyne told those from his home county and its diaspora: “Never stop dreaming.”
“Stick your chest out and be proud to be from Mayo. The wait is over, SAM is home.”
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