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Daniel Carey
When I heard that John O’Mahony was in Tuam Stadium on Sunday, my heart sank. Pleading a 4am finish to the election count, I had successfully requested to watch the game from the couch. Johnno rocking up blew that alibi out of the water. If a successful Fine Gael candidate managed it, surely a fella who had spent Saturday in his own house could have made it to the Town of the Tribes for 2.30 on Sunday?
Actually, I’m not sure I’d have been able to find the front door on Sunday morning – or anything that wasn’t the TV, radio or computer. I do vaguely remember going outside briefly on Saturday afternoon, because as I crossed the Mayo/Galway border, I met somebody in a clown costume driving a car in the opposite direction. No kidding.
By Sunday afternoon, everything was being viewed through the prism of the election. There was just one tricolour flying above St Jarlath’s Park – maybe Sinn Féin had taken the rest of them for use at election counts? Republicans had sung ‘On The One Road’ after Jonathan O’Brien was elected in Cork North Central, with its amusingly unself-conscious second line: “We’re on the road to God knows where”.
Which is where Galway appear to be heading, if Sunday’s second-half display is any indicator. Reflecting on “one of the poorest performances we’ve seen for the last few years”, Frank Morris told Midwest Radio that there was “a fierce lack of talent in Galway at the minute”.
While some may want to see the Tuam ‘hayshed’ rebuilt – one Crossmolina man joked that it had elevated McHale Park to “second worst pitch in the country” – it looks like the Tribesmen’s immediate reconstruction priorities are on the pitch. It’s been a rough week for Galway, where RTE’s Miriam O’Callaghan claimed there were people being “literally crucified” by the banks in Tuesday’s leaders’ debate.
The second of Jason Doherty’s two goals effectively ensured a Mayo victory, and Midwest were able to break away for a count from the Galway West constituency without missing much. The proof of Mike Finnerty’s observation that the game “died a death” in the second period comes with the fact that this reporter moved away from the radio and television, and began following the game primarily on Twitter. “Why does the GAA specialise in balding, ageing refs?” well-known Mayo GAA blogger Willie Joe wanted to know, before noting that the overly-fussy Longford official Derek Fahy “obviously feels his yellow card needs exercise”.
One well-known Mayoman caught the attention of both the TG4 cameras and tweeter Paul Ginty, who posted a picture taken from the stand of John Durcan from Westport (AKA St Patrick) holding one of his trademark signs. It didn’t sound like we were missing much from Murrayfield – “Ireland barely outshitify Scotland” was Colm Tobin’s first-half summary on Twitter.
So Mayo won, and the strangeness of my afternoon only dawned on me when I got a phone call on Sunday evening from a Mayo man. “Were you in Tuam?” he asked. “Nah, I followed it on Twitter,” I replied. “What?” he asked incredulously, before recovering his stride. “Galway are so bad,” he said, “that they will surely win Connacht. Remember 1987? When Galway get really useless, they get dangerous.”
You have been warned.
