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06 Sept 2025
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06 Sept 2025
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Joe McCann (pictured second from left) with friends and supporters after winning the World Mens Open Doubles 4-Wall title with Robbie McCarthy of Westmeath (Pic: Stephen Marken/Sportsfile)
MAYO’S week of success at the World 4-Wall Championships continued in Croke Park on Sunday when Ballaghaderreen’s Joe McCann won the World Mens Open Doubles 4-Wall title alongside Westmeath’s Robbie McCarthy.
The pair defeated Martin Mulkerrins and Killian Carroll in the final, making McCann Mayo’s latest world handball champion following the earlier success of Shane Heraty and Lorcan Conlon in the Mens B Doubles 40x20 World Championship.
Speaking afterwards, McCann described playing with McCarthy - a reigning All-Ireland champion - as ‘an incredible experience’.
McCann, who is a former All-Ireland champion, lost his son, CJ, to cancer last October.
“A lot has happened in the past year. Robbie is used to in the army running 20 miles with 20k on his back in under 14 minutes. Today I think he ran 100 miles with 90k on his back. But genuinely it was an honour to get a phone call,” the 41-year-old joked.
“Robbie is the current All-Ireland champion and senior handball was a thing of the past for me and I asked him on the phone call, I didn’t really know what was going on, but I asked him, ‘Robbie, do you think we can win?’ And he said, in his thickest Westmeath accent ‘I’m not ringing you because I think we can lose, Joe’. But it was a great honour for me.”
Very emotional scenes in Croke Park this evening, Joe McCann Ballaghaderreen has been through a rollercoaster year. Joe McCann (Mayo) and Robbie McCarthy (Westmeath) are the World Mens Open Doubles 4-Wall Champions 2024
— Mayo GAA (@MayoGAA) November 3, 2024
Congratulations Lads pic.twitter.com/TS5zIrblsF
McCann concluded by thanking his and McCarthy’s friends, family and relations for their support.
He was joined afterwards by his wife Niamh and daughters Clodagh and Róisín, who brought with them their late brother’s beloved gingerbread man.
Niamh sported a t-shirt bearing the crest of CJ’s Rainbow, an initiative set up by the McCanns which raised over €250,000 for children’s cancer charities.
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