There are many reasons for Mayo’s surge to Sunday’s All-Ireland SFC final against Kerry, not least the input of Kobe McDonald and Jordan Flynn.
The brothers are not the only Crossmolina natives to share their first names with sporting icons, however. On the Gill farm just outside the town lives an 11-year-old sheepdog called Cooper, christened in honour of Kerry legend Colm.
Local man Michael Gill married Geraldine Hanafin, from Beenbawn, Dingle in 1999, having met when she was posted to the nearby Cooneal NS on an exchange from Foxrock in Dublin.
“Our first date was in Hiney’s in Crossmolina,” she says, “to see Brush Shiels, which tells you how long ago it was!”
When the relationship progressed, it was clear that her future lay further up the west coast than Dingle – “You can’t go too far when you’re farming,” Michael says, laughing – though summer holidays provided opportunities for trips back to Kerry with the couple’s children, Micheál and Éilish.
Geraldine taught Mayo squad member James Carr in Rathnamagh NS and of course having the Crossmolina presence – Conor Loftus is also part of the set-up – means that there is a tangible connection.
“To have three from our club is so special,” she says. “You follow them as they’re growing up and you’re so proud to see them do well.”
She would love to see them help the county end a 75-year wait glory – but only if they were playing anyone else.
“I’ll always be a proud Daingean Uí Chúis woman,” Geraldine says.
“I grew up with Páidí Ó Sé bringing the Sam Maguire to the school and getting our half-day in September and Dylan Geaney would be a neighbour from back home.”
Michael takes a pragmatic view: “Kerry can win it next year and the year after.”
Few would have cited Mayo as live contenders for glory this year but they have built up a head of steam in reaching the final.
Kobe McDonald, son of the legendary Ciarán, has been the poster-boy for the progress made in Andy Moran’s first season.
The fact that, barring a replay, Sunday will be the teenager’s last Mayo game for a while – he is set to join Australian rules side St Kilda in the autumn – is bittersweet but adds to the intrigue.
Like any small town club, Crossmolina Deel Rovers’ fortunes have fluctuated. The 1990s brought success that culminated with an All-Ireland senior club win in 2001 but the club had dropped to intermediate by the early part of this decade before making it back to Croke Park glory.
“Talented groups come and go,” says club secretary Michael Hegarty, “but the effort has always been the same and we’ve had good facilities.
“There was a sports hall built on the back of the 2001 win and an astroturf in 2015. We won a minor ‘A’ title last year – Kobe was on that team – and they were the first group of U8s to go in on that pitch.
“We were able to run winter leagues and things like that because of it. Talent is huge but you need the facilities and then the time and investment in the people afterwards.”
Emotional occassion
Crossmolina’s win over Ballinderry in the All-Ireland intermediate final in January 2025 was an emotional occasion, capped by Loftus scoring a late goal from a penalty, a fortnight after the tragic death of his fiancée Róisín Cryan.
A year on and Dingle were ascending the steps of the Hogan Stand to claim the Andy Merrigan Cup as All-Ireland senior club champions, edging St Brigid’s of Roscommon after extra time.
It capped a remarkable journey, having won the Kerry county championship for the first time in 77 years and then going on to provincial glory, coming out on the right side of many tight games.
“There were a few years where we went close but something always went against us,” says club chairperson Seán O’Sullivan.
“At the start of last year, we had eight lads in the Kerry squad and they all picked up injuries but they were all back, bar Barry Dan O’Sullivan, for the county championship.
“We just got on a run – Mark O’Connor was home from Australia and he was able to play and our goalkeeper Gavin was over and back to Australia because his partner Claire was expecting a baby and Óigí was born a couple of hours before the All-Ireland final.”
The sense of destiny has continued as Dingle chose Paul Geaney to become Kerry captain and he became the first man to lift the Corn Pháidí Uí Shé – he is married to Páidí’s daughter Siún. He will look to lift Sam Maguire as Kerry chase a 40th All-Ireland; Mayo would say 39 is enough for now.
You might think that someone who grew up as Mary Joyce would hail from Connacht. She is in fact Tralee born and bred, though her father Paddy is from Louisburgh – Paddy Prendergast, a star of Mayo’s last win in 1951, was a family friend.
“Dad says he’s been in purgatory in Kerry for the last 45 years,” she says, laughing, “he would have been bribing kids on our road to shout for Mayo, giving them a few pounds.”
Two sides of the story
Mary first met her future husband Ed Barrett of Geesala, north Mayo at the University of Limerick – he lived with students from Kerry while a cousin of his was a neighbour of the Joyces in Tralee.
The couple now live in Leixlip – Mary teaches in the Patrician Secondary School in Newbridge while Ed works for Global Payments. Their children Ronan, Gráinne and Ailbhe are being raised as Kildare fans and play for St Mary’s in Leixlip, with Ed and Mary both coaching in the juvenile section.
The family were in Croke Park to see the Lilywhites win the All-Ireland ladies’ intermediate title in 2023 and they have travelled en masse to games in support of both Kerry and Mayo so Sunday presents a new vista.
“It’s a two and a one,” Mary says, “the eldest girl Gráinne is siding for Kerry and Ronan and Ailbhe are going for Mayo.
“I think it’s the whole story, the idea that one grandad – my Dad – was three when Mayo last won while the other, Ed’s father Séamus, wasn’t even born.”
Ed was a member of the Mayo team that reached the All-Ireland minor final in 2000, his sister Rachel won ladies’ senior medals and is flying home from the US for Sunday’s game.
He notes that the children’s decision to opt for green and red over green and gold may also have a commercial element to it, but he isn’t complaining.
“It’s probably more lucrative for them,” he says.
“At the same time, they know all the tales, about the ‘curse’ and the struggles. It’s like Rachel flying home – you’re not going to take the chance of missing out if they did win it. There’s people flying back from all over the world and that’s all part of it.
“I know we haven’t won it but there’s been great craic and a great buzz. A lot of counties don’t get that.”
Of late, Tommy Canavan has played Masters football for Waterford – he lives in Tramore with his wife Miriam, a former Déise footballer, and their children Bree, Mary Kate and Tom – but his heart too resides back in the west.
Bar the COVID-impacted 2021 loss to Tyrone, the Breaffy native has been at every Mayo final since 2004 and over the past decade has engaged in what has become a sombre tradition, one he hopes will end soon.
Before every Mayo final, he books a seat on a Monday afternoon train from Heuston Station to Castlebar, hoping to be at the homecoming to end all homecomings.
When booking a specific seat on an Iarnród Éireann service, you can input a name that will be displayed above it. Most put their own name, but there is no compulsion.
“It started out with a simple ‘Sam Maguire’,” he says, “and then I started to get creative by putting the names of Mayo greats like TJ Kilgallon and this time around it’ll be Willie Joe Padden.
“The seats have always been empty, though – I think it affords it the sobriety of the situation.”
One of the most tiresome clichés is that “it’s the hope that kills you” – but if that were true, teams like Mayo wouldn’t have the support that they do.
“After each one, in retrospect, you say that there are reasons why we lost, the team wasn’t good enough, et cetera,” Tommy says.
“But, before each one – no matter how many you’ve lost – you utterly convince yourself that it’s going to happen.
“It’s the same right now; you go through in your head the various reasons why you’re going to win and I remember doing the same for all of the others.”
That iron-willed belief that the promised land will be reached is of course an essential part of the Mayo condition. As Mary Barrett points out, though, the journey itself can’t be overlooked.
“We were coming out of a lost one final one year – it wasn’t against Kerry, because I remember it was a year I was shouting for Mayo,” she says.
“We were getting on the train in Drumcondra and it was like a wake, just all quiet. There was a guy in front of us and he piped up, ‘Look lads, imagine if we’d won today – the dream would be over!”
All the same, you get the sense that they wouldn’t mind finding out what it feels like to have that dream come true.
SHARING OPTIONS