Staggs party after All-Ireland win

GREAT plumes of smoke from bonfires filled the hot summer night air as scores stood out at Hollymount junction to welcome home Mayo’s newest All-Ireland champions.
Green and red tops, jerseys and flags glowed in the late evening sun as a chorus of a car horns was detected faintly in the distance.
Great cheers and applause shot forth when the victorious convoy rounded the corner, led by Mayo’s All-Ireland winning Under-14 girls’ football team.
Like their remaining pitstops, this one was brief and euphoric.
The Mayo News tried to grab a few words with winning manager Sinéad Stagg, but the local resident literally hadn’t a minute to spare.
By the time we finally caught up with her on Sunday evening, she was in Knockmore having already travelled the breadth of the county with her footballing ‘queens’.
Sinead would talk for Ireland on a good day, but on days like these she’d talk forever.
“They were just unstoppable. No matter who they were playing on Saturday they just came with that intent that they weren’t going to be beaten,” she said, speaking through a phone that fielded 268 WhatsApps in the immediate aftermath of the final.
“In fairness, every girl that took the field, every girl that was part of the panel, played their part in getting us to the win. Duly, 33 girls now are All-Ireland champions today,” she added.
“It’s amazing for ladies football I’m just so happy and so proud of all the girls, that if I could bubble up this emotion and keep it for the rest of my life that’s exactly what I’d do.”
An All-Ireland winner with the Mayo seniors herself back in the day, the Ballinrobe native will gladly tell you she’s been a mother of 33 ever since the squad first met up on a dark November night in Ballinrobe athletics track.
She is immensely proud of them all, but particularly her own daughter Emma, who looks set to follow in her mother’s footsteps after shooting 2-3 against Cork last weekend.
She did so surrounded by friends, family and an army of supporters that descended on Nenagh with a fleet of buses that came from Charlestown to Knockmore and right down to Kilmaine.
“To have my own family there and my wonderful in-laws, everybody, it was immense.
“There was a lot of grannies and grandads there, who said that they haven’t felt that kind of emotion in a long long long long time, That was something special, it really really was,” she recalled.
“They are moments to be treasured. I’m a real proud mum today.”
From the final whistle to the rousing post-match rendition of ‘Freed From Desire’ to the joyous homecoming, Sinéad Stagg and her management team made some incredible memories over the weekend.
But the one that will live longest is seeing her daughter, along with fellow joint captain Síofra McGuinness carry the ‘Platinum’ chalice over the border and into Mayo.
“Hollymount was just immense, but coming over the border…it hasn’t been done in a long, long, long, long time and that was just something that will stick in the memory bank for a long, long time,” concluded Sinead.