A train journey to Westport

It’s three days before the first All-Ireland semi-final and we’re taking The GAA Hour west.

To be honest, we’re headed there now because we might never get another chance this summer to do a live show in Mayo and a championship without a live show in Mayo really wouldn’t make very much sense whatsoever.

They’re up against Kerry, league and Munster champions Kerry. The Kerry who’re still the only ones to put Dublin to the sword since March 2015, when they did it themselves back then too. The same Kerry who are so threatening that most people have spent the last week completely and naively preoccupied with the problem that is Kieran Donaghy when Paul Geaney and James O’Donoghue are running wild on the same bloody line as him.

The reality is that this might be the last we see of Mayo so we’d best strike now to make sure we get a visit to the Atlantic coast because it’s different out there.

We were in Castlebar last year – the show had only been going a few months and we went there with what seems like an amateur setup to what we’re bringing now but we also went there completely unsuspecting of the appetite for such an event so far from the show’s home.

The guts of 500 people crammed in to the Mitchell’s club house that night, every one of them hushed to hear opinions and predictions, all of them roaring wild when Pillar Caffrey sat before them and that tape from 2006 of him hitting John Morrison a shoulder right into the back was played on the big screen. They laughed at the impressions of Jim Gavin, they oohed when James Horan was asked what happened with Conor Mortimer and they hung on every word, almost frothing at the mouths for anything and everything football.

There was no way we weren’t going to come back in 2017 and there was no way we were going to take the risk and bank on them beating Kerry to keep that plan alive.

I’m on the train myself – the production team are already on the other side of the island sorting out space, stages, sound, lights and cameras and I’m timing the journey to perfection in the hope of avoiding any heavy lifting. I’ll ask if anyone needs help, of course I will, but I’ll ask when it’s apparent that there’s no help left to be given.

There’s a middle-aged woman sitting beside me, fair hair to her shoulders, a green rain coat on. She seems like a nervous character. She’s already asked for the window seat and she’s tapping her hands on the table, looking around herself every so often and her knee is jerking up and down as she rocks, unsettled, on the balls of her feet.

There are three elderly folks across the aisle from us – a man and a woman who look like a married couple, one of those relaxed couples who seem really content with life – and they’re chatting to a very pleasant old woman at the other side of the table. He’s wearing a short-sleeved chequered shirt – cream and just a darker version of cream – and she’s in white. Their bright colours, their smiles and their general friendliness just give off a vibe of two people completely at ease. Happy.

I’m wondering what they’re all thinking of me. I imagine I’m fitting a younger stereotype pretty well right now. I have a GAA Hour t-shirt on with my name imprinted on the back. Who does that?

I have my headphones in, probably looking to do anything to avoid conversation.

And I’m desperately refreshing my screen over and over just hoping for some signal, any signal, and I’m doing it all in a frustrated scramble to hear Second Captains because I’ve decided that Ken Early is the best man to talk about Conor McGregor – whatever that tells you about that event, I’ll leave to you but I’m getting brief, intermittent joy, broken up by shitty WiFi, lack of data connection and actual real-life conversation on the train I’m on now.

The three across the way are having a heart-warming chat about the beauty of the GAA. The couple are talking about their grandson and his club and how he’s been tried out in midfield during the league. They’re going on about his passion for it, how he’d never miss a session, he couldn’t possibly… ever – it seems to be a family joke too. The lady on her own says her son is on the executive board at his club, her daughter is coaching in the club and they all agree that it’s a great thing to have. The GAA.

There’s an old soccer saying that no-one fails in that sport, everyone just finds their level. Anyone who’s ever sat in a championship changing room with a reserve team would know with pure clarity that it applies here too. They might not be as skilled or as well-trained but it doesn’t mean any less to them. The beauty of this thing is that whist there’s a place for players of all abilities, there’s a place for people too. There are different roles, different jobs, at the side of the pitch, in the committee room, on the training field or at club events, everyone can find their place in a GAA club – whether they’ve ever picked up a ball or not.

Tom Parsons put it perfectly on The GAA Hour when he summed up the power of the GAA - or, as he calls it, the magic.

"Sometimes the taste of not having something makes you appreciate what you have," the midfielder said of his time away from homw.

"Certainly the GAA – the club, the community - what we have in Ireland is magic.

"Some guys mightn’t appreciate it but when I was away in Cardiff, it was so difficult to be embraced into a community or to make friends – even playing other sports. What we have is just so unique.

"It’s magic.

"Coming back [to Ireland], I really appreciate it."

The connection is back on my phone and we’re just over a week out from one of the biggest, most anticipated boxing fights in history but it’s soon interrupted again and whatever was said in between, the man across the way is now talking about what a good team the Derry minors have this year. They’ve just beaten Sligo in the quarter-finals but I’m left wondering where the hell he has watched the Derry team this year but obviously he has.

I take the earphones off in case I need to fact check for my native county but as soon as I do, the nice woman beside me begins talking and I feel bad now that I didn’t give her the opportunity to earlier.

"Are you related to Jason?" she asks.

I have no idea what she’s talking about. I genuinely don’t think I know one Jason in my life.

- "Sorry?"

- "I saw Doherty on the back of your jersey and thought you might be related to Jason."

- "Oh, no, I’m from Derry," I say thinking it makes me sound exotic and that we’ll probably go off on a tangent now whilst I explain to her why Derry is as Irish as Cork and why the border doesn’t mean anything to us up there and why Brexit would be a disaster.

- "Jason’s a fine footballer," she says.

- "Ah yeah, he is," I’m slightly disappointed I didn’t get to ram a militant nationalist viewpoint down her throat if I’m completely honest. I give it another shot though. "I can’t believe he wasn’t starting against Derry. I was down for the game – we should’ve beaten you that day!"

- "Burrishoole… he’s from Burrishoole. He’s a fine bit of stuff."

She wants to talk about Mayo and only Mayo today so we do that. She’s not going to the game at Croke Park. It’ll be the first one she misses this season but she’s heading around to a care home where her mother stays and they’re going to watch it together there. She’s 85 and she still roars mad at the television watching the matches. I tell her she’ll have a chance to get up to Croker for the replay anyway after they draw on Sunday. It’s not a joke that goes down well. She covers her mouth and shakes her head and says she couldn’t bear the thought of another draw.

Sure, what are the odds?

She says she can’t keep doing this. She thought 2013 was the one. She’s talking about ’96 and ’97 now. She’s headed back to 1989 and I’m just listening in pure amazement at one woman’s love for her county.

Beside me, a Mayo native’s nerves are visibly shot at the prospect of another big game and what a win would do for them. Just one win. To my right, the most pleasant group of strangers are dissecting underage prospects in different clubs, they’re talking about "Sunday" too – around these here parts, you don’t need to be specific because most people assume it’s football chat – and they’re marvelling in the joy and misery of the GAA and how, whatever will be on Sunday, they’ll be back on board next year.

This could only be a train for Mayo.

"You’re mad for it down here," I say. "I’ve never known a county so passionate for their team."

"Willie Joe Padden, no-one could live with him in the air," I don’t even think she can hear me anymore. Her eyes are fixed into the empty seat in front of us but her head is journeying back through near-misses and maybe a few daring glances of hope to Sunday.

"Big Anthony Tohill would," I laugh.

"Belmullet… have you ever been?"

"I haven’t, no."

"Oh, it’s a lovely part of the world."

It’s lovely but their under-16s gave her club a trimming not long ago. They’ve a mighty club house up there. She doesn’t know who’s going to mark Donaghy on Sunday.

Any time you head to Mayo any summer, it is a genuine privilege.

There’s just something in the Mayo air. When you get into the county, when you see the banners, the flags and talk to its people, inter-county football is like a beating pulse in the west – you couldn’t escape it and you wouldn’t want to.

Even on a Thursday morning train from the capital to Westport, it’s just Mayo. It’s just GAA. It’s just another given Sunday.

You’d nearly wonder if some of that magic would be lost if Mayo were to actually go on and finally win the whole thing like God knows they only deserve too much.

Because, right now, it’s hard to imagine a time or a place when football, and all the spirit and dreams it summons with it, could ever top this. The passion and unity and the unrelenting drive that lives and breathes in every corner of the county right now will never again exist like this.

The struggle of Mayo is almost their purpose. It’s their identity now whether they like it or not and, actually, it’s what makes the place and its people and their story so captivating.

There’s a real beauty in this never-ending climb that indiscriminately consumes the place from Ballycastle to Shrule.

The longer it goes on, the bigger the dream gets and the more possessed the obsessed become. The longer it goes on, the more purpose, aggression and vigour they hit each and every January with because they're not going to settle for another hard luck story and, even when they have to, they can continue in the bliss of the fresh Spring mornings with new hope that this year is their year.

No county can say they’ve enjoyed a ride like Mayo fans have – no-one.

Hailing from Derry, a proud, strong, GAA-mad heartland, there aren’t too many places on this island that I’d openly admit that I’m jealous of but every time you step foot anywhere near MacHale Park, it’s hard not to be envious of the fire that’s lit beneath each and every Gael in the green and red.

I’m jealous of Mayo and it’s not because of their All-Ireland success. It’s because of their struggle. It’s because of their journey. It’s because they come back every year and it means even more than it did the last time.

The county is in a permanent state of crescendo and every one of them is marching to the beat of the same drum. The more time that passes, the louder and more spectacular the piece becomes, the more natives who are forced to join along. The more time that passes, the more you can say with confidence that whenever you meet a Mayo man or woman, you're only going to end up talking about their story and talking about "Sunday".

Their pain is beautiful, they must even realise that themselves.

If they climbed the Hogan Stand steps, it would be like no other county winning Sam ever before but, somewhere, you’d have to shed a tear that the epic struggle is over. You'd miss stepping onto a train for Westport knowing full well that Sunday is going to be consuming the place. You'd miss Januarys as they are because, without The Great Struggle, they just wouldn't be the same again.

But, Jesus, it’d be nice if they did it.