‘The Quiet Man’ was shot in Cong, County Mayo the same year that Mayo last shot the lights out by winning the Sam Maguire Cup: 1951. Uncle Sam, simultaneously, was busily engaged in catigating the locals in Korea as a criminal shower of Calbans ..
Is there a portent here that the 70th anniversary of the last Mayo victory – and therefore, the Ending of the curse-o’God Curse – will take place this Saturday on the twentieth Anniversary of 9/11, which marked the beginning of Uncle Sam’s doomed boom-bam–a-ding-a-ling-a-wham-bang with the Taliban?
THE CURSE
The late Biddy Early came first with The Curse
Till the funereal priest bate her with even worse
Seventy lengthy years
A Biblical span of Tyrs
None’d begrudge Mayo apart from a cutpurse.
Or, WORSE?
Christian Eriksen from that town of Middelfart
Would feel for the countymen of Mickey Harte
Tir Eoghain or Tyrone?
Ni chroisfear ‘ ochon’ !
Once we push Sam home, in a wee handcart.
This year, now that the Dubs, doubled up with boredom, have exited, Mayo for once are Favs to become the Haves rather than the Have Nots. This is down to their morphing from a forward line with 2 or 3 shooters to one with Six Shooters. Y ? As Joe ‘Guff’ Duffy might put it.
It is hardly a coincidence that Ciaran Mc Donald has taken over as Forwards Coach. The sublime former footballer from Crossmolina who had more magic in the,lúidín of his left foot than, say, his contemporary, Roy ‘of the Rows’ Keane had in his head to toe.
Not for nothing is Ciaran known as ‘SuperMac’ in his home county. This makes it a case of training UNDER SuperMac rather than ON a SuperMac.
Thus, did The Kodak-Mo Hack aka the Quiet Man put his best, erm, Viet forwards as he hop-step-and-jumped at the invitation to visit the new training routine of the Green and Red of Mayo in Cong . His guide and mentor was Fickaleen Oge O Minh (played by Gerald Fitz Barry in the movie). While most of the attached snaps feature just how SuperMac has shown the Neo-Mayoists how shots might be fired from all angles and with the accuracy of a flashback to the last time they won, in ’51.
Butt. And as apples go, tis a big Butt. (See snap 6 taken at the entrance to the Cú Chi tunnel in Pairc Ui .Quok). Less reminiscent of Cong than the Congo .when the Battle of the Tunnel. was fought at half time in 1961..
The Shadow of the Punman, has not gone away, de réir dealraimh.
Let Mayo beware.
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