On Sunday, 26 July 2026, Mayo defeated Kerry by 1-20 to 1-17 and became All-Ireland football champions for the first time since 1951.
Writing those words still feels strange.
For anyone outside Mayo, it was a great sporting victory and the end of a famous 75-year wait. For the people of the county, however, it meant far more than that. It was the end of decades of disappointment, near misses, painful journeys home and the constant fear that we might never live to see Sam Maguire return to Mayo.
I was at the 1989 final against Cork as a child. Since then, I have attended every Mayo All-Ireland final that was open to supporters.
I saw the draws, the replays, the heavy defeats and the heartbreaking narrow losses. I saw brilliant Mayo teams come within touching distance of the cup, only for it to be taken away again.
Every time, we travelled in hope. They say it’s the hope that kills. Every time, we somehow managed to convince ourselves that perhaps this would finally be the year.
Until last Sunday, it never was.
Coming Home for Every Final
Since 2016, I have travelled home from Austria for every Mayo All-Ireland final. Each journey began with the same hope that perhaps this time would finally be different.
The narrow defeats to Dublin in 2016 and 2017 were particularly brutal. After both games, the atmosphere leaving Croke Park felt more like a funeral than the end of a football match. Thousands of Mayo people walked quietly through the streets, trying to understand how we had come so close and still lost again.
But the most sickening defeat of all, for me (literally), was the 2021 final against Tyrone. I had travelled from Austria despite suffering from a horrible stomach bug, convinced that Mayo were finally going to do it. Instead, the team simply did not perform on the day. After all the effort, expense and expectation, it was a deeply miserable experience and a day I will never forget.
Those journeys made Sunday’s victory even more emotional. After years of flights, hope, disappointment and long trips back to Austria without a victory, I was finally there to see Mayo finish the job.
That history and all those journeys home from Austria made the closing minutes against Kerry almost unbearable.
Even with Mayo ahead, nobody around me was celebrating. Mayo supporters have been hurt too many times to believe that it is over before the final whistle. We have seen leads disappear, late chances missed and games turn in a matter of seconds.
The match itself seemed to contain the entire Mayo story.
Kerry raced into a seven-point lead, with Mayo trailing 1-5 to 0-1 during the first half. Sitting in Croke Park, it was difficult not to think that another horrible afternoon was beginning to unfold. But this Mayo team did not panic and they showed massive resilience when 2 smashing 2-pointers, along with a monster kick from the sideline by the young Darragh Beirne.
They fought their way back into the match, took control after half-time and struck through Darragh Beirne’s goal. Ryan O’Donogue’s run from deep in the Kerry half to evade 4 Kerrymen and set up the goal is a moment of determination and sheer brilliance I will never forget.
When Kerry responded, as everyone knew they would, Mayo held their nerve. This time, there was no collapse. There was no cruel final twist. There was no last-minute score to tear the cup away from us again.
Instead, with only 15 seconds on the clock, the kid with ice running through his veins, Kobe McDonald, coasted beautifully through the Kerry line to set up an easy score for Tommy Conroy to polish the day off. No panic, no fear, lessons learned.
When the final whistle eventually sounded, the first emotion was almost disbelief.
Mayo had actually done it.
More Than a Football Match
For Mayo, this was never simply about winning a trophy. It was about the generations of families who travelled to Croke Park together. It was about parents who brought their children to finals in the 1980s and 1990s and later watched those children bring families of their own.
It was about Mayo people living in Dublin, London, New York, Australia, Austria and across the world who continued to organise their lives around the county team.
The expense of it all you can imagine. Die hard fans could more than likely have afforded a nice little cottage somewhere along Clew Bay had they invested their hard-earned money somewhere else! I can guarantee you though, they’d take last week’s victory over all of that.
For decades, Mayo became known as the county that nearly won, the bridesmaids, so to speak.
Every new Mayo team inherited the weight of all the teams that had gone before it. Every final was presented not only as another football match, but as another attempt to end the suffering of previous generations.
Well, that burden is finally gone.
A New Mayo Story
Perhaps the greatest significance of this victory will only become clear in the years ahead.
A new generation of Mayo children will grow up knowing that their county can win the All-Ireland. They will not know Mayo only as brave runners-up, unfortunate nearly-men or the team that always found a way to lose.
They have now seen a Mayo captain climb the steps of the Hogan Stand and lift the Sam Maguire Cup. The players have also given something enormous back to the county. The week Sam was taken to every corner of the county will live long in everybody’s memories.
Mayo football has provided us with unforgettable days, friendships and a powerful sense of identity. But there is no point pretending that it has not caused an extraordinary amount of pain as well.
There was a certain weight carried on the shoulder of the county, and along with the ever-changing weather, the topic was discussed passionately. Whether at the back of the church on a Sunday, or parent-teacher meetings in the local secondary school, the words, ‘Well, what do you reckon about this year?’ were never too far away.
On 26 July 2026, it finally gave us the day we had all been waiting for.
I had seen Mayo lose in almost every way imaginable and had begun to wonder whether I would ever witness the moment when everything finally changed.
Thirty-seven years after my first final, I did.
And What About the Mayo Curse?
No Mayo story would be complete without mentioning the famous curse, the one that Mayo would not win another All-Ireland while any member of the 1951 team was still alive.
In the years that followed, Mayo lost 11 finals, some in almost unbelievably cruel fashion: own goals, late scores, drawn games followed by replay defeats and several losses by a single point. If you were trying to convince people that a curse was real, Mayo certainly provided plenty of evidence.
Paddy Prendergast, the last surviving starter from the 1951 team, died just two weeks after Mayo lost their last final, in 2021.
I do not really believe in curses. But after everything Mayo supporters had witnessed, I was not going to argue too strongly either. Perhaps it simply took a few extra years for the curse to clear the system.
Mayo are All-Ireland champions.
Sam is home. Maigh Eo Abú