A Mayo heart in a Cavan kingdom

The love of Mayo football saw him richly rewarded with lemonade and chocolate bars on a sunny Sunday in 1967. The grá for the green and red led to him calling for the 'Hollymount bus' on a New York sidewalk 52 years later and the dream of seeing Sam Maguire travel through Robeen on its way to downtown Castlebar has never waned – not for a second.

Jim McGovern is a Mayo man to the very core of his being. He has spent the majority of his life exiled from the land of tall majestic hills and craggy boglands, but his heart beats for the moment a Mayo man will climb into the Hogan Stand and raise the big bowl towards the heavens.

“I will die happy after that,” he tells The Mayo News, during a conversation which ranges from heroic deeds of the past to watching grandchildren absorb the love of the green and red, all the way to discussing the chances of his adopted county against his beloved Mayo next Saturday evening.

Jim McGovern has lived in Cavan for more than 40 years. He has built a life in and around his beloved Kingscourt; he has found love; raised a wonderful family; become engrossed in the local GAA club; worked in Kingspan for half a lifetime and spread the Mayo football gospel far and wide.

“They all know how much I love Mayo,” he explains. 

That love of the green above the red stretches back to early childhood. On a famous day in 1967, Jim and his neighbour Frank Noone, (who would go on to star for the Mayo senior team throughout the 1980s) won a Fancy Dress competition dressed as two of the stars who defeated the great Galway three-in-a-row team.

“We wore red shirts with green crepe paper around us and called ourselves ‘The Death of The Three in a Row.’ We won two pounds for it and on the way home my father stopped in Shrule for a drink. The lads in the pub wanted to know what the craic was with the two young lads with the red shirts and the green paper and when we told them they couldn’t do enough for us. The lads in Shrule wouldn’t be the biggest fans of Galway,” McGovern adds with a smile.

The Robeen native was at the 1970 National League final when Mayo defeated Down and when his picture appeared in the paper that week, his happiness knew no bounds. “I thought I was a millionaire.”

Jim left Robeen while still a teenager and ended up in Kingscourt where he met Maragret, a young widow and the two of them set off on life’s journey together. To say their family is football mad might be a little understated. Margaret’s grandson, Jordan Morris, might play for Meath but has been to more Mayo games with Jim than most natives of the western kingdom. Another grandson, Oran Finnegan, was in goal for Monaghan’s great minor team last season and his sister Nicole has an encyclopaedic knowledge of Mayo football.

“She’s going to games with me since she could walk,” McGovern explains. “She was at the All-Stars with me in 2017 when we won five awards and she was the happiest girl in the place. She could give a team-talk in the Mayo dressingroom on Saturday evening and whenever we lose a big game she’s the only person I’ll talk to about football for a few days,” the former chairman of Kingscourt Stars GAA Club tells The Mayo News.

McGovern is happy with his lot in Cavan. He has his family around him; he’s working in Kingspan for as long as he can remember and he’s immersed in the sporting and community life of the lovely land where he can strike off to matches in Cavan, Meath, Monaghan and Louth at the drop of a hat. He can talk about Gunner Brady, Jim Reilly and Padraig Faulkner in the same breath as Sean Flanagan, Johnny Carey and Paddy Durcan, but there is no doubt about where his heart belongs.

“I live for the day we’ll get our hands on Sam Maguire. I have a great life here in Cavan, but Mayo football is my passion. It’s like a religion and I’ve had the best of times along the way. I was on the street in New York after the Mayo match in 2019 and a local asked me was I okay and I told him I was waiting for the Hollymount bus. He thought I was a bit mad. Maybe I was. That’s what following Mayo does to a person.” 

On Saturday evening, the man who has spent most of his life in Cavan will take his seat in MacHale Park ready to roar on his beloved Mayo. Madness doesn’t come into it.

BEST MAYO FOOTBALLER

"I’ve seen so many great Mayo footballers over the years I could be naming them here half the day. John Morley was my boyhood hero and I got his autograph many times as a boy. I shed tears the day he was shot dead. It was such a tragedy, such a waste of a great life. 

There were many greats from my early days following Mayo including Joe Corcoran, Willie McGee and others and then, in more recent times there have been the likes of James Nallen, TJ Kilgallon, Willie Joe Padden, Kevin O’Neill and so many more. I loved them all. Then, of course there was Ciaran McDonald - one of the greatest talents I’ve ever seen. Not only was he gifted, he could handle himself against the Australians too in the Compromise Rules."

CAVAN'S CHANCES TODAY

"They won’t be going to Castlebar to look at the scenery. They’re a fine team. They’re well prepared and if they’re in contention with 15 minutes to go they could win it. Mayo are hot favourites and rightly so, but this isn’t a foregone conclusion by any means. Of course, because I’m so long in Cavan I have a deep grá for the place and the people and I know how much football means to them too. They definitely won’t be afraid of us on Saturday evening."