The final whistle went. Everywhere around me Armagh people seemed to explode with happiness. They hugged each other, they cried, they roared and screamed and lepped and punched the air.
I turned around to shake the hand of the man behind me, not because we had been talking to each other or because he had been obnoxious or I had been obnoxious during the game. I just wanted to be seen to be a good loser. So it was an entirely selfish act that the gentleman in question took with reasonably good grace. He wasn’t too bothered with me, and why the hell would he be, quite frankly.
A good loser is what I shall be today, then. Oh Christ.
♦◊♦
The build-up to the All-Ireland football final of 2024 had been, in the language of the internet of that summer, very demure, very mindful. I was not a bucket of nerves. I was confident, without being cocky. I didn’t see Galway winning it by more than three points, but I also didn’t see them losing under any circumstances.
I travelled to Crossmaglen that week to talk to Oisín McConville and he felt similarly confident. That knocked me out of my stride briefly, but by Saturday I had righted myself. We will win, it will be a good day, we will be happy.
I met a few friends from home on that Saturday night, we discussed the game, we all agreed with each other that Galway would win a close one. We insulated ourselves in our rightness. We luxuriated in the solidity of our arguments, our wisdom. We deserved this weekend, and we would enjoy it.
I got up the following morning, and went to Jury’s Croke Park for a prematch lunch. I chatted amiably with some Galway people, I good-naturedly joshed with some Armagh fans. It was all tremendous fun, and I was sparkling company. What a day this would be!
I marched confidently into the ground with my wife, we took our seats, we settled in. The game began cagily, and it stayed cagey. There was the incident with the injured seagull who refused to leave the field of play, which I’m sure was mildly diverting for those watching on television, but which nonetheless soon began to irritate me greatly.
The longer the first half went on, the more a bad feeling set in. Maybe this is going to be rather different to how I saw it all panning out. Maybe instead of luxuriating in our wisdom, we were just quite drunk last night. Maybe I wasn’t sparkling company at that prematch lunch at all? Maybe I was boring people? Maybe I came across a little . . . smug?
“Was I being a little smug back at the hotel there?” I asked my wife, which I’m sure seemed a little out of nowhere for her, given this was 20 minutes into an All-Ireland football final.
“No more smug than usual,” wasn’t the vote of confidence I was looking for. Half-time came. I tried to meet my brother, but the concourse in the Cusack was absolutely mobbed and I gave up after five minutes.
Looking back now, I could pinpoint when I’d get that feeling again – at around 1.15am on Wednesday, November 5th, when it first really started to look like the state of Georgia was going to go to Donald Trump.
The Armagh goal goes in, 11 minutes into the second half, and that feeling hardens. And all of a sudden, the game is over and the meeting with all three of your brothers after the game is cut in half. Two of them put messages into our WhatsApp group – they’re already on the road home. That’s how brutal it is.
I meet the third brother, the brother who has booked a room in a hotel, the most confident brother of all. He is not going home. But he’s not in much of a mood to stay around Croker. So we walk into town. It’s me, my wife, my brother Paul, Eoin McDevitt and Kevin Brannigan, my Second Captains compatriots. I think outwardly I’m keeping it together.
The missed frees. Rob Finnerty’s injury. Dylan McHugh hitting the post in the last minute. Conroy getting blocked down in the last second. We can discuss this like adults, and that’s what we’re doing.
Then, halfway down Marlborough Street, a memory strikes me.
“Paul!”
“Remember in the second half when Tierney had the ball on the Cusack Stand sideline, and all he had to do was find Silke – it was Silke, wasn’t it – and if Silke gets that ball he had a two-on-one and it was Comer. Oh Christ. That was it! That was the moment. That one handpass.”
I’m on my knees. It’s just for a second, but my knees touch tarmac. I’m supposed to be out with Paul for the evening, but from that moment on he effectively takes a vow of silence, broken only by dark mutterings.
“This is worse than ‘83.”
“Now I know how the Mayos feel.”
My wife begs my co-workers to stay out with her.
“You can’t leave me here with these two. Look at them.”
They sympathise. In the end, they spirit her away. And then it’s just the two of us. Paul is muttering again.
“If you say anything about next year, I’ll kick you in the head.”
It’s there though. 2025. That undiscovered country.
And in a few days, it’ll be here. And we’ve signed up for more of the same.
