Whiskey saved for the day Mayo won the All-Ireland is finally poured
According to ‘The Whiskey World’, this bottle Speyside Single Malt Scotch Whiskey is top class and would retail today at £219.90.
The amazing story of the bottle of scotch whiskey that bore the inscription on the cover box ‘to be given free when Mayo win the All-Ireland’ has come to light in recent days.
The bottle, now in the Gill family home at Ivy House, Scardaune, near Claremorris and in the heart of Garrymore country, spent many years in Campbell’s famous pub at the foot of the Reek in Murrisk.
Anne Gill, wife of Andy, and who died in October 2025, was formerly Campbell from the legendary pub. It was after the passing of her brother Owen and during the period when the pub was closed before a new lease agreement saw it reopen again that this one bottle was brought by Anne to her home in Scardaune.
The family feel that it was Michael, or Micheál as he was known to many, may have been the person who inscribed the words on the cover box of the Tomintoul-Glenlivet 12-year-old whisky that was bottled in the 1980s. Micheál, who died in January 2024, was a passionate Mayo supporter who had an encyclopaedic knowledge of Mayo football and GAA matters in general.
Andy Gill feels it may have been ‘set aside’ in the aftermath of Mayo’s dual losses to Meath and Kerry in the finals of 1996 and 1997 (when his cousin, Noel Connelly, captained Mayo on both days) and in the hope that Mayo’s day of glory was near.
Special day
The bottle marked ‘No Sale’ was clearly and with much vision reserved for that special day when Sam Maguire would return to Mayo. According to ‘The Whiskey World’, this bottle Speyside Single Malt Scotch Whisky is top class and would retail today at £219.90.
Some hours after Mayo winning the All-Ireland final, Andy and some family members opened the bottle that came from Scotland to Mayo all those years ago and raised a toast to our incredible team. Perhaps the most amazing coincidence of all is that Eoin McGreal, who played such a central role for Mayo, is a grand-nephew of Andy Gill. The ways of the world are indeed strange and none much stranger than the stories around Mayo football!