Joe Brolly: The deep heart’s core

NOW that the exhibition football is over, it is back to the real stuff. The stuff of the heart’s core.

Last weekend, we were up at Ballaghadereen to watch Knockmore against Ballagh (as the locals call it) in the first round of the Mayo Senior Championship.

It was a very poignant day, the first Ballagh game since John O’Mahony died. Paidi McKeever, fresh from his All-Ireland and Olympics triumph (both Armagh and the Irish Olympic team are kitted out by McKvr Sports), had made a special commemorative jersey for the team.

Before the throw-in, they stood in solidarity with the O’Mahony family. Then a moment’s silence. Then the anthem. It is no exaggeration to say you could feel John all around you.

Ballagh, who had never beaten Knockmore in Senior Championship, seemed a different team. Behind by three at half time and facing into a gale in the second half, they refused to yield. Was it superstition to think John’s spirit was roving amongst them? As the second half wore on, they played harder and harder.

The nerves were transferred to the Knockmore players and in the final few minutes, Ballagh went ahead for the first time. When Kevin McLaughlin put a great chance narrowly wide with the last kick of the game, Ballagh had won by a point and the place erupted with joy.

John’s beloved Ger invited us to her home afterwards for lunch. Paidi said the first time he went into that house, In Easter 1999, he fell in love with the O’Mahonys.

It is a magical place, full of love, an old stone dealers’ house with a tower and secret gardens, like an Oxford Don’s lodging. It was a McKvr branded event, John’s daughters and husbands and grandchildren all sporting McKvr tops.

Ger, who is a dynamo, had prepared a beautiful lunch, plates of salad and chicken and lasagne kept coming. Resistance was futile. “You’ll have a piece of lasagne Joe.” “I can’t Ger, I’m full.” “I’ll wrap it for you to take home.” “You’ll have some apple tart Joe.” “I can’t Ger, I couldn’t eat another thing.” “I’ll wrap it for you to take home.”

Ger’s sister Imelda arrived in and the fun started. She owns the general store in the town, M.Towey, handed down from her father.

“What do you sell?” I said. “Everything. Even bottles of liniment.” Ger said, “Some of the old farmers who buy it get Imelda to rub it in for them.” “You’re joking” I said, “In the shop?” “Yes” said Imelda, laughing. “It’s not a knocking shop,” said Ger. “Mammy!” the four girls shouted simultaneously. “What sort of money would you charge to rub me?” I said. “I’d probably do you for free.” Paidi laughed and shook his head.

If John had been there he would have given us all the look. His two brothers are priests and John studied for the priesthood before meeting Ger and getting hit by what the Italians call “il colpo de fulmine.” If John was priestly and composed and silent, Ger is the opposite, a mischievous, chatty extrovert.

“I remember the first time I came to this house,” said Paidi. “Ger conducted the interview. John was the silent cop, absorbing everything, saying nothing.” John was a Director in McKvr from the off. Paidi told me in the early days, when they were clawing their way up the cliff face, board meetings were fraught. “We would be tearing into each other. I would lose my cool altogether. There would be shouting. Real temper. John just let us at it. When we had calmed down, he would suggest a strategy. Nine times out of ten, he was right. He was a strategic genius.” “He would need to be to take Leitrim to a Connacht title,” I said.

I was chatting to Anthony (Larry) Finnerty during the week, who played on the 1988/1989 Mayo team that John coached to the All-Ireland final.

“John was only 35 when he took over that team and he got a baptism of fire,” said Larry, laughing. Larry is always laughing and it is impossible not to laugh with him. Once I bumped into him and Willie Joe Padden in Dublin, drinking. Larry went into the toilets and came out with his head wrapped in toilet paper, simulating Willie Joe’s clumsily bandaged head in the second half of the 1988 semi-final.

John’s debut in charge of these fine young men was an exhibition game at Elland Road against Dublin.

The game was on the Sunday and the Mayo lads flew over from Knock on the Friday, then went on the lash on Friday night in the Irish centre in Leeds which had liberal opening hours.

“The next morning John held a training session and read us the riot act. We were due to go to a civic reception that night at Leeds Council with the Dubs and he warned us there was to be no drink and an early night. This put me in a bad spot, because I had arranged to meet two sisters from Manchester that night. In those days there were no mobile phones so I couldn’t cancel, even if I had wanted to.

“Halfway through the civic reception, I sneaked out and went to meet the girls in Stumps Bar. But the word had filtered out and about half an hour later, the whole Dublin team arrived, followed by all the Mayo lads. We got stuck into the pints and the singing and at midnight when the bar closed, we headed for the Irish centre. I breezed in with the two girls, and there, sitting at the door on his own, sipping an Orange Fanta, was John. He never said a word. Just gave us the look. We turned on our heel and went back to the hotel.

“The next day, he announced the team for the game and I was dropped. We only had two subs, me and another young fellow who had a black eye from the night before.”

We spent three priceless hours with the O’Mahonys last Sunday and when we left, we felt good about the world, replenished, optimistic. John O’Mahony’s legacy is a lot more than football.