Cover story meme, the jokes came thick and fast. Through all that, Mayo footballers and supporters never shied away from speaking about it, nor returning to All-Ireland finals. Maybe we make too much of the football, Fr Leo Morahan, the former county board executive, said back in 2007. Mayo has the whole Celtic thing of either being ecstatic or absolutely down in the depths of despair. Maybe it is common to all coastal counties, I dont know. Take the old saying, Mayo, God help us. My belief is that it originates from the Famine when a lot of people fled the land and crowded the port towns like Sligo, Dublin and Galway to get away. And when people were asked where they came from, the reply was Mayo, God help us, and it stuck. But in a way, I am kind of proud of that. You carry your wounds with honour. Thats what they did. Walk into any Mayo pub and it wont be long before you will come upon photographs of the 1936 team and the mid-century team that won back-to-back All-Ireland titles in 1950 and 1951. Three All-Ireland titles is hardly a lavish haul. But the composition of that back-to-back winning team was filled with bright, brilliant people. Seán Flanagan, the captain, was then a young barrister and TD who would go on to Mayo has the whole Celtic thing of either being ecstatic or absolutely down in the depths of despair hold several Cabinet ministerial posts. Eamonn Mongey was a barrister and, later, registrar of the High Court. Pádraig Carney, a doctor who, in an implausibly glamorous turn, flew home from his new life in America to play with the team for the 1954 season. Peter Solan was an engineer, Paddy Prendergast a garda, Joe Dixon a farmer. They all carried themselves with authority and easy self-assurance and they left a deep imprint on the county. Those two years, when the team in its dashing all-white strip dominated, set the template for what Mayo football represented. Fr Morahans observation about ecstasy and despair remains the key to its mythologies. The most remarkable statistic about Mayo football has nothing to do with All-Ireland finals. After the gradual dissolution of the team that won successive All-Irelands, Mayo managed just five Connacht title wins 1955, 1967, 1969, 1981, 1985 in 30 years. In other words, the county senior team was essentially locked out of the business of winning the All-Ireland. They failed to win a single senior Connacht title throughout the 1970s. When John OMahony took charge of the senior team in 1988, he combined his unique personality traits of meticulousness, shrewdness, a kind of spiritual goodness and a romantic sensibility about Mayo to fan the embers and set the whole thing in motion again. Famously, the 1989 team was offered a flight from Knock Airport, then the pride of the county, to Dublin. OMahony later regretted accepting it as it created extra fuss. But Mayo might well have beaten Cork that day and the return flight that Monday evening yielded a fabulous-if-lonely sight for the team as the plane began its descent. The narrow roads were a procession of car lights and, as they hit the tarmac, the players could see thousands of people, of faces, against the wire. The crowd got us all, Kevin McStay, the former player and manager, would later say. There was something very sad and very rural about it. It almost had the look of a massive country funeral. If so, it was a party with a raucous wake. The losing team toured the country for a week, convinced that Mayo was on the threshold of reclaiming lost glories. Instead, that year marked the beginning of the concerted quest which would go on for a further 37 years. The curse legend was probably revived after the freakish outcome of the 1996 drawn final against Meath, when a hopeful downfield punt from Colm Coyle literally bounced over the Mayo crossbar. It was a bizarre moment of bad luck, but there was no single reason why Mayo hadnt won. I wish there was, John Maughan, the manager in 96, told The Irish Times. Really, I would love if someone could present one identifiable reason. But dont come to me with all the voodoo talk or curses. That is pie in the sky. I heard the same thing down in Clare with the hex of Biddy Early. And I dont mind it. It is a fun thing. Equally, its not about theories on guys getting injured or over-training for a certain week in August or all those things that are analysed afterwards. And, of course, I have heard that we have lost games because Maughan didnt change X, Y and Z at a given time. But hey, you dance with the girls that are in the dance hall. Maughan said that in February THE IRISH TIMES Weekend Saturday, August 1, 2026 3 DavidSedarisontheseriousbusinessofcomedy.Page8 WalledtownsofIreland:RositaBolandvisitsWexford.Page10 PatrickFreyne:GlenHansardwasIrelandsbandleader.Page5 WEEKEND THE IRISH TIMES Saturday, August 1st, 2026 A WOUND IS HEALED Afterdecadesofheartbreakandnearmisses, Mayofinallyhasitsmomentinthesun By 2 Cover story A HOUSE OF PAIN NO MORE MayosAll-Irelandtriumphreleased75yearsof pent-upemotioninoneunforgettableafternoon ByKeithDuggan M acHale Park in Castlebar has always been best suited to those Saturday-night matches in winter, when the season is young and the promise uncontained. An ideal Cover story meme, the jokes came thick and fast. Through all that, Mayo footballers and supporters never shied away from speaking about it, nor returning to All-Ireland finals. Maybe we make too much of the football, Fr Leo Morahan, the former county board executive, said back in 2007. Mayo has the 4 Cover story 2004, when he was beginning his sec- ond term as Mayo manager. By September, he had the county back in an All-Ireland final, when Kerry defeated his young team. Like most GAA counties, the network of names and connections within Mayo football are impossibly dense: you could fill the People GLEN HANSARD WAS OUR NATIONAL BARD TheFramesfrontmanwasIrelandsbandleader, anditfeltlikehewouldbedoingthejobfor alongtime ByPatrickFreyne I n the 1990s, I wasnt convinced by The Frames. They felt a bit mainstream. A bit major label. I was a young idiot. Later, a friend convinced me that I 6 Music THE PIANIST WHO PLAYS WITH ONE HAND ONLY Freya Terris is the first pianist to pass their Grade 8 piano exam playing solely with their left hand ByJohnOConnor L ike countless other young musicians, Freya Terris discovered her love of music at the piano stool. Yet her journey has been anyt People 7 Fearkeptmefrom doingwhatIreally wantedtodoorsay Q&ARevJanetBroderick The Donegal-based priest on childhood games with her brother actor Matthew Broderick, how people react when she preaches sermons, and who could play her in a biopic Howagreeableareyou? I think life has made me agreeable 8 Interview I DONT LIKE EXTREMISTS. BUT I FIND THEM THRILLING AS CHARACTERS TheUSwriterandhumouristtalksabouttheseriousbusinessofbeingfunny onthepageandathislivereadings ByPatrickFreyne WEEKEND INTERVIEW DAVID SEDARIS A few days after I interview David Sedaris, I receive a thank-you postcard fe Interview 9 I just tried to get through my days [at school] without being found out as gay. Im 69, so no one even really imagined then that anyone could be anything that awful back then DavidSedaris: Idontknowhow tobuyaplane ticket.Idontopen anymailthat doesntlooklike fanmail. Photograph: Leonardo 10 Feature HISTORY EMBRACES US EVERY DAY IN WEXFORD In the first of a four-part series on Irelands walled towns, we visit Wexford, where history is quite literally in peoples back gardens ByRositaBoland I f Billy Colfer talked to you about history, youd sit up and listen, Paul Walsh tells me. W Feature field. We discovered that Sparrow was a surname of ship owners back in the 1830s, Hussey says. Hussey brings me out into their back garden to show me where, more than a century ago, a house was built against the other side of their wall. The medieval wall thus became a party wall. It towers 12 Photo essay Formedtotacklethe siltingissueintheriver Liffey,thereservenow extendstotheentirety ofthebay WILD AT HEART Photographs: DaraMacDónaill andEndaODowd Words: EndaODowd O f the 797 Unesco biosphere reserves across 147 countries, Dublin Bay is the only one to include a national capital Photo essay DublinsNorth BullIsland,partof theDublinBay Unescobiosphere reserve,isnow hometo180 differentspeciesof bird.However, conservationists warnthat,asworks tostopcoastal erosionareerected alongthecoastline, theirlong-term impactonthe ecologyand landscapemaybe difficulttopredict. Photographs: 14 Feature TWINS PEAK WERE PROBABLY MIRROR IMAGES OF EACH OTHER Whetheritsthehighsofalwayshavingcompanyor thelowsofsensingtheotherspain,thebestpartof beingatwinisneverbeingstuckforafriend ByJenHogan I relands birth rate may be falling, but the incidence of twin births continues to rise, with al Feature 15 Its sometimes fun and its sometimes not, because they could steal your stuff had a friend beside you. In fact, the twins only really went their separate ways when they went to college and that was a major shock, Emma says. Rebecca says there are lots of upsides to being a twin, but the T 16 Essay he vintage front page shows a street full of Dublin holidaymakers smiling at the camera, sitting on the kerb, waiting for the bus in the sun. But these early queues soon dissipated. Bank holiday spoiled by weather, announces the reusable headline. The citys thoroughfares were WEEKEND E Essay 17 Governments might fancy deploying bank holidays to foster cohesion and goodwill, but that doesnt mean everybody has to play along crashing out of the Fifa World Cup was that Friday, July 24th, became the bank holiday that never was. Would Keir Starmers mooted last act have applied across 18 Feature BE LIKE JOHN LENNON AND BUY AN IRISH ISLAND Four islands for sale off Mayo, Donegal, Tipperary and Galway, with bidding starting at 299,000 ByJessicaDoyle W hen you attract screaming fans everywhere you go, what do you do to get some peace and quiet? You buy an island, of course. Tha People 19 SARAH MOSS Teenage dieting made me an expert in mental arithmetic I bofin. It is suitable for grazing and features two natural freshwater lakes. The island measures 1.2km by 0.4km and rises to a maximum height of 63.3m above sea level. It is a Special Protection Area under the EU Bird 20 Environment TOMAÍ Ó CONGHAILE Our beautiful, troubled planet needs a skilled reconciler T he World Cup may be over but the fallout continues: Trumps unwanted interventions; Germanys early exit; football not coming home; Argentinas post-final petulance. Not to mention, of course, that banner. Environment 21 British navy, spent several days imprisoned in the Tower of London on corruption charges, and died of smallpox before reaching 40. Initially, a strait running between the two main islands was named after him and, by 1765, the Falkland Islands had become the English name for the entire 22 Obituaries FIRST WOMAN DIRECTOR OF A NATIONAL INSTITUTION, LIBRARIAN AND ACADEMIC Patricia (Pat, Patsy) Donlon Born: January 28th, 1943 Died: July 23rd, 2026 Patricia (Pat, Patsy) Donlon, who has died peacefully aged 83 at Blackrock Hospice, Dublin, was a leading light in that remarkable generat Obituaries 23 RENOWNED ORNITHOLOGIST AND COMIC ACTOR WHO STARRED IN THE GOODIES Bill Oddie BillOddiewasamemberofcomedy trioTheGoodies,whoseanarchicTV sketchshowairedinthe1970sand 1980s.Photograph:IanGavan/Getty Born: July 7th, 1941 Died: July 25th, 2026 Bill Oddie, who has died aged 85, was a mul 24 Last word DAVID McWILLIAMS ThefirstvictimofAI? Theeconomy W e are in an era of great technological advances, or so say all the tech bros who are championing not just AI, but a whole host of technological innovations from finance and healthcare to supply chain management and communications. In