With only a week to go until the All-Ireland Final, the build-up has reached feverish levels in Mayo; they’re even turning the food green and red for God’s sake.
One of the great things about writing about GAA during this busy time in the calendar year is that the content practically writes itself, especially for a light-hearted (well, we at least try to be light-hearted) column such as this one.
No searching for idle news angles from an O’Byrne Cup or FBD League game in the wilds of winter, not one bit of it.
Instead, with one of the most novel All-Ireland Finals a matter of days away, a simple search of the #donegalgaa or #mayogaa hashtags on Twitter reveals a wealth of brilliant material, as both sets of fans ramp up their efforts to see who is capable of producing the most outrageous symbols of support for their beloved county.
Over the last few days and weeks, we’ve had a ridiculously well-hung sheep in a Donegal jersey, bales of silage with Mayo-4-Sam painted on them and Jimmy McGuinness’ own currency to name just a few.
Now, with almost every other avenue explored in Mayo, they’re taken to turning the food red and green.
You may have seen the picture of a delivery lorry for O’Hara’s bread explicitly covered with good wishes for Mayo in an article from earlier this week and now they’ve gone one better with greed and red packaging on their loaves of bread. Safe to say that not too many of these will be sold in Donegal next week.
Thanks again to Heather O’Hara for sending in this one.
And what better to put between those slices of bread than a couple of green and red sausages, which were spotted in Kelly’s Butchers in Newport earlier this week.
Pic via Twitter/Stephen O’Malley
We can only hope that they were artificially coloured in some way and they haven’t simply turned that colour because they’ve been too long on the shelf, but they’ll still probably sell out regardless.
Surely the only other thing needed to complete the sandwich is the Green and Red of Mayo…naise (terrible, I know). Over to you Hellmans.
Pippa O’Connor’s criticism of Donegal is possibly the most damning yet
Most people’s opinions of Donegal have changed dramatically in the last 12 months.
A little over a year ago, the headline ‘How Dublin saved the GAA’ – as in, saved it from Donegal – appeared in the Evening Herald after the All-Ireland semi-final, while Pat Spillane spouted off something about ‘crimes against Gaelic Football’ in the Sunday Game studio.
Now, they’re receiving praise from all quarters for their dynamic, flexible and all-conquering approach, and rightly so, but there are still a few dissenting voices. Jim McGuinness might have been easily able to brush off criticism from the likes of Spillane and others, but disapproval from Pippa O’Connor is bound to cut deep.
Pippa, of course, is one of the managers in the new series of Celebrity Bainisteoir, the first episode of which aired last Sunday evening. On hearing that she was to be in charge of Naomh Brid in Ballintra, Pippa was heard to say: “I’m going home – I’m not going to Donegal. You are joking me.”
Turns out Pippa has had a change of heart and she seemed eager to rebuild a few bridges when in conversation with the Donegal Democrat earlier this week.
“The interview was filmed months ago in a wet and windy Dublin when we were all tired,” Pippa said.
“Since coming to Donegal, I have been shown nothing but the great traditional Donegal hospitality. It is the best thing that ever happened me and I simply can’t get enough of this county. I am even dragging Brian (hubby Brian Ormond, who’s also taking part in the series) up at weekends – hopefully it might put him off his game.”
As long as she doesn’t put any of the county lads off their game in the next week or so, they’ll be happy enough to forgive you Pippa.
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