I was 16 when I first travelled to Croke Park to watch Mayo in an All-Ireland final.

It was 1996. Mayo versus Meath.

Dad, Mum, my brother Julian, my uncle Patrick and myself, all decked out in the green and red and absolutely convinced this was going to be our year.

Sound familiar?

It was my first experience of Croke Park and, sitting there as a young teenager in my wheelchair, everything felt enormous.

Croke Park itself was this big, cold jungle of concrete.

Even before we got anywhere near the stadium, I remember making our way along Clonliffe Road packed in like sardines. It felt claustrophobic. Thousands of people moving in the same direction with green and red everywhere.

And over all the noise came that unmistakable Dublin soundtrack:

“Get your hats, scarves and headbands!”

I can still hear the iconic Dublin accent.

Eventually we made our way into the Cusack Stand and found our spot.

I was excited.

I was anxious.

I was probably a little overwhelmed.

It was loud. It was colourful. Green and red on one side. Green and gold on the other.

And beside me was Dad.

So I was grand.

My dad might not have been the tallest man, but I can tell you one thing.

He had the biggest heart.

I always felt safe when he was beside me.

I didn’t know it that day, but I was about to begin a 30-year relationship with Croke Park, Mayo football and heartbreak.

Some introduction.

Surely Next Year

1996 wasn’t to be.

Neither were quite a few years after it.

And so began the pilgrimage.

Dorset Street.

Clonliffe Road.

The crowds.

The flags.

The hope.

The nerves.

The belief that maybe, just maybe, this time would be different.

And then that long walk back out of Croke Park when it wasn’t.

Again.

And again.

And again.

We often talk about Mayo football and resilience.

God knows we’ve needed enough of it.

But resilience isn’t an endless supply.

Every loss takes a little bit out of you.

Each time another small chink gets knocked out of the armour.

You repair it. You convince yourself to believe again. You put the jersey back on.

But eventually you become wary of hope.

Hope is dangerous when you’ve been here before.

And Then Came 2026

This year’s championship didn’t exactly begin with a flashing neon sign saying, “Sam Maguire is coming to Mayo.”

We had a shaky start.

But somehow the road kept opening.

Suddenly we were in a quarter-final against Cork.

Then came Louth in the semi-final.

Now, this presented a small domestic issue.

The mothership is from Louth.

So, in the interests of family harmony, I had to “consent” to a red and white flag being put in the garden.

I feel it’s important to record publicly that this consent was given under extreme circumstances. Just kidding mum!!

Mayo got past Louth.

And there we were.

Back in an All-Ireland final.

Against Kerry.

Our old nemesis.

Wonderful.

No pressure whatsoever.

Do I Really Want to Put Myself Through This Again?

Two tickets secured.

Myself and the brother were going.

We joined the Mayo pilgrimage at around 8am on Sunday morning.

And I won’t lie.

There were moments when I genuinely contemplated not going.

Thirty years of experience was sitting on my shoulder saying:

Do you really want to put yourself through this again?

I could picture that walk out of Croke Park after another loss.

I knew that feeling.

I knew it too well.

And this time there was another difference.

Dad wasn’t coming.

He died in 2010.

Uncle Patrick wasn’t coming either. Sadly, we lost him earlier this year.

Two of the people who had been there at the very beginning of my Mayo journey in 1996 were gone.

But we carried them with us.

We always do.

That’s the strange thing about grief.

People die, but they don’t stop coming places with you.

Maybe…

The journey to Dublin couldn’t have gone smoother.

A parking space was practically sitting waiting for us outside the Rotunda hospital.

Then, as we made our way towards Clonliffe Road, I spontaneously bumped into my good friend Ann Marie F.

You couldn’t have planned it.

And then there was the small matter of the jerseys.

Mayo were wearing white.

Yes.

White.

Curse be damned.

And somewhere, buried very deep in the chambers of my battered Mayo heart, something started stirring.

Hope.

I wasn’t letting it get too comfortable.

But it was there.

Maybe…

Here We Go Again

The first half was tough.

Very tough.

There were moments where I thought Mayo might be in for a scalping.

And that familiar feeling started creeping back in.

Here we go again.

Only this time Dad wasn’t sitting beside me keeping the spirits up.

My brother, normally not short of a word or two, was unusually quiet.

I think the entire Mayo support was holding its breath.

Then came the second half.

Darragh Beirne found the net.

And something changed.

Not just on the scoreboard.

You could feel it.

Mayo stood up.

They stuck their chests out.

The crowd stood up with them.

The noise changed.

The belief changed.

After decades of waiting for the wheels to come off, something completely different was happening in front of us.

Mayo stayed strong.

And then the claxon sounded.

Seventy minutes.

It was over.

Mayo had won the All-Ireland.

By three points.

Mayo.

Had.

Won.

The.

All-Ireland.

Seventy-Five Years

I cried.

My brother cried.

I think the whole of Croke Park cried.

The Saw Doctors blasted through the stadium and somehow thousands of Mayo voices managed to drown them out.

And something inside me just released.

Thirty years.

Thirty years since that teenage girl sat in her wheelchair in the Cusack Stand 14 years of those with her dad beside her.

Thirty years of travelling those roads.

Thirty years of hope.

Sometimes laughter.

Sometime tears of joy.

Loss.

Anxiety.

Disappointment.

Grief.

And still going back.

It felt like somebody had suddenly opened a valve.

Everything came out.

I had emotions I didn’t even know I had.

Because this wasn’t just about 70 minutes of football.

For Mayo, it was 75 years.

For me, it was 30.

For Those Who Didn’t Make It

And then Jack Coyne spoke.

Somehow, that young man managed to put words around what thousands of us were feeling.

He spoke about everyone who had been part of the journey since Mayo last lifted Sam in 1951.

Managers.

Players.

Supporters.

And those no longer here to see it.

Our fallen comrades.

That’s when it really landed.

Dad.

Patrick.

Michael and Patrick were two of those comrades.

They started this journey with me in 1996.

They didn’t get to finish it beside me in 2026.

That’s grief.

It turns up in the happiest moments too.

Sometimes especially in the happiest moments.

Because when something wonderful happens, one of your first instincts is to look for the people you wish were there to see it.

But maybe they did.

I’d like to think so.

I’d like to think somewhere Dad was smiling.

Probably telling me he knew all along.

I’m less convinced about that part.

But on 26 July 2026, I felt him there.

I felt Patrick too.

And I’m sure I wasn’t the only person in Croke Park looking towards the sky thinking of someone.

There were generations in that stadium.

And there were generations missing from it.

All part of the same Mayo story.

Resilience Isn’t About Never Breaking

I’ve thought a lot about resilience over the years.

As a disabled woman, it’s a word I’ve sometimes had an uneasy relationship with.

Disabled people are constantly praised for being resilient, often when what we actually need is for somebody to remove the bloody barrier in front of us.

But Mayo taught me another version of resilience.

Resilience doesn’t mean you don’t get hurt.

It doesn’t mean disappointment doesn’t take something out of you.

It doesn’t mean endlessly smiling while things go wrong.

Sometimes resilience is admitting you’re afraid to hope again.

And then hoping anyway.

Sometimes it’s getting back on the road.

Sometimes it’s putting the flag back up.

Sometimes it’s going to Croke Park even though every fibre of your being remembers exactly how that lonely walk home feels.

And sometimes, just sometimes, you get the day you’ve been waiting for.

A Moment in Time

The 26th of July 2026 will never be replicated.

It can’t be.

It was a moment in time.

And I am so glad I was there.

The teenager who entered that big concrete jungle in 1996 could never have imagined it would take another 30 years.

I couldn’t have imagined everything that would happen in between.

The people I would lose.

The person I would become.

Or how much that green and red jersey would somehow become wrapped around family, place, grief, identity and home.

But I kept going back.

And finally, it happened in my lifetime.

Mayo are All-Ireland champions.

To every player, coach and member of the management team, and to our guiding light Andy Moran, thank you.

You carried yourselves with grace and dignity throughout.

You gave a county a day it will never forget.

You gave generations of Mayo people the chance to finally release 75 years of waiting.

And for some of us, you gave us a moment with the people who weren’t physically sitting beside us anymore.

Dad, we finally did it.

Patrick, we finally did it.

Mayo, we finally bloody did it.

Maigh Eo Abú.