In today’s Hospital Pass, we have one Mayo style icon defending another, and the strange case of the Lazarus-like recovery in Down.
Everyone knows how clannish they can be around Mayo. It doesn’t matter whether you’re from Belmullet or Ballyhaunis, you’re part of the same great seething mass of green and red whenever you head to Dublin for an All-Ireland final tonking every few years.
It may have been mentioned before, but there are a few Mayo lads in the office and they do everything together. They get the bus together. They drive west together on Friday evenings with a boot full of dirty boxers. They eat cabbage sandwiches together.
So it was no real surprise when our favourite GAA style icon, Conor “The Mort” Mortimer – sorry MJ, but you’re a close second in our eyes – leapt to the defence of his countyman Louis Walsh on the aul’ Twitter.
Louis has found himself at the centre of a more-than-likely-fabricated storm this week, and us Irish being as begrudging as ever, the social networking sites were agog with lads lining up to have a pop at pop’s fourth greatest mentor (after Simon, Cheryl and the uglier Minogue one, of course).
But as us Meath men know only too well, when you have a dig at one Mayo man you have a dig at them all, and the Mort was having none of it. “Get of louis walshs back an absolute gentleman and a Mayo Man,” he tweeted. “Truth always comes out. Some sad people out there #keepthefaith.”
Lazarus is alive – and he’s wearing a Down jersey
When we read reports earlier this week of the double-leg-fracture, cruciate ligament rupture and late-onset-Alzheimer’s which had afflicted Down star Danny Hughes, we thought there was no chance of him making the cut when Wee James McCartan named his team for the bus-trip to Ennis on Saturday evening.
And yet, pre-Championship weekdays are nothing if not full of surprising team news. A couple of days after we heard developments from Laois, where MJ was back – or was he? – Wee James dropped the bombshell that Danny would indeed be part of his side at Cusack Park for the first round qualifier against the Banner.
Hughes was a revelation during Down’s journey to the All-Ireland final a year ago, and McCartan was loathe to go into back-door battle without him this time around, even if he has one leg hanging off and part of his brain has ceased to function.
Actually, having consulted The Great God Google, it seems that the All Star forward merely had a bit of a hamstring-hiccup this week, and he will be the subject of a late fitness test in Ennis on Saturday night.
However, his chances of recovery must be slim. As anyone who has ever spent much time in The Queen’s nightclub will know, the terms “fit”, “Saturday night” and “Ennis” form a very unusual combination.
