Mecca beckons for pilgrims whose dreams never die

Country Living with Francis Farragher

At this stage, it’s seems more like a kind of pilgrimage . . . another trip along the road and this time to the county of William Butler Yeats and a little sporting theatre under the snout of Ben Bulben. We’re now into late July and the peak of the GAA season is upon us with trips to Croke Park looming for the lucky ones, while the Carlows, Leitrims, Wicklows and Wexfords of this world start to think ahead to 2018, nurturing a dream of two that they’ll win a championship match or two after the winter hibernation.

It is a rollercoaster of an experience and one where the moods can change from week to week. There we were, the Galway supporters, on the second Sunday in July, sipping Bud and Guinness that evening as one lament followed the next, after Roscommon had inflicted an unmerciful hiding on us.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about trying to make sense of matches and sport, it’s never to get too depressed about a defeat or two elated about a victory. Staying calm somewhere in the middle ground between the impostors of triumph and disaster (Kipling), really is the way to go when seriously following sport.

Last Saturday evening, Donegal trotted out onto Markievicz Park as red hot favourites and yet less than an hour and a half later, they traipsed off the pitch having endured a serious humiliation on a number of fronts.

As they’d say out the country, they were ‘be’t out the gap’, they ran out of subs at an early stage of the second half, they ended up with only 13 men and they could do anything but score a goal.

I thought to myself that if this was happening to Galway and if I was an ordinary supporter who didn’t have to wait until the final whistle to officially record the happenings of the day, that I’d be hitting for Knock with ten or 15 minutes to go.

Up north though, there seems to be that extra bit of loyalty to ‘the cause’ and even as the match drifted into injury time and their ‘star man’ in attack, Patrick McBrearty, kicked their last point with time nearly up, most of the Donegal supporters had waited to applaud the score.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.