After 75 Years Of Losing, Mayo Shocked The World And Shook A Stadium

DUBLIN — Misery loves company, but ecstasy attracts it.

And so it was that Irish football fans by the tens of thousands shed happy tears together inside Croke Park on Sunday during the All-Ireland Final, as historically downtrodden Mayo vanquished both mighty Kerry, 1-20 to 1-17, and oh-so-many demons.

It’s impossible to make up for 75 years of pain and suffering caused by all the brutal championship-game losses in one afternoon, but the https://x.com/CraicOfTheAsh/status/2081457992281571524?s=46">outpouring of joy among Mayo players and the green-and-red clad faithful that packed one of the biggest (capacity: 84,000) and holiest sporting grounds in the world was as close to an equal and opposite reaction as anybody could have conjured.

I’d never experienced anything in sports nearly as emotional before.

And, yeah, I was crying like a baby and smiling as wide as could be, as was everybody around me. 

I’d fallen hard for all things Mayo, but mostly the football team, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct67mt">during a work trip there in 2023.

I learned lots about the supposed "curse" that was placed on the county after the 1951 All-Ireland championship.

The legend holds that while on their way home from their second Sam Maguire Cup in a row, Mayo players who were either riding on the back of a lorrie or in a bus (depending on the teller of the tale), were so caught up in their victory celebration that they paid no mind to a funeral taking place in the town of Foxford.

A peeved local priest then decreed that Mayo would not get another Sam Maguire Cup until every member of the championship panel had died. 

And Mayo, by coincidence or bad luck or divine intervention, started losing big games, and kept on losing them.

Since the 1951 placement of the mythical or ecclesiastical hex, the team played in 13 All-Ireland Final games, including two replays, and went 0-fer.