County Mayo break legendary 75-year-old curse to win All-Ireland football championship

Legend has it that the last time County Mayo won the Gaelic Football All-Ireland in 1951, an angry priest cursed the team to never win another championship as long as they lived.

But on Sunday – five years after the last member of the team died in 1951 – Mayo beat Kerry to lift the Sam Maguire Cup for the first time in 75 years.

John Gunnigan, manager of Mayo Football Talk podcast, watch the win live at Croke Park stadium in Dublin. He says it was a moment the people of Mayo will never forget.

“I’ve lived in Croke Park for over 50 years at this stage, and I’ve never, ever experienced anything like that,” Gunnigan said. As It Happened hosted by Loren McGinnis.

“I’ve never seen so many people cry, including me.”

The story of the curse

Gaelic Football All-Ireland is the national championship for Gaelic football, a sport similar to Irish football in which 15 teams compete against each other.

Gunnigan says the event is very popular in Ireland and among the Irish diaspora. Bigger, I mean, than the World Cup.

“It’s a big event, and we’re some of the youngest in the game,” he said. “Getting to the final is a big, big deal.”

Mayo have entered 11 All-Ireland championships since winning in 1951, and lost every one.

Eventually, Gunnigan said, people began to blame their defeat on a curse, which the 1951 team reportedly received while celebrating their victory in the town of Foxford.

“The story goes that when they were going through … they entered the funeral home in town and delayed the funeral,” Gunnigan said.

“The priest didn’t get mad, and you didn’t get mad at the priest in those days. So it’s said that the priest was so mad at the team that he said no matter who was in that team, Mayo would never win the All-Ireland again.”

It probably didn’t happen

It makes a good rope, Gunnigan says, but it doesn’t seem to hold water.

RTE, Ireland’s public broadcaster, investigated the curse earlier this year and found no church records, newspaper articles or eyewitness accounts to corroborate the story. There is also no record of a funeral accompanying the delegation’s visit to Foxford.

Members of the 1951 team also disputed the claims over the years. Paddy Prendergast, the last survivor, dismissed as hogwash any chance he got, according to the Irish Times.

Prendergast died in 2021, two weeks after Mayo’s last defeat.

Gunnigan says the curse became a living legend.

“The problem, you know, we didn’t know anything about that curse when we were growing up, I was born in 1962,” said Gunnigan.

“It was only after we lost five finals, I believe, in the early 1990s, that the curse word gained any currency at all.”

He remembers the 2021 championships, when Mayo managed to beat the more famous Dublin, only to lose to the less formidable Tyrone.

“I think that was the day I said: ‘Jesus, we’ve got to be cursed. Like, how on Earth did we lose that game?'” he said.

“But actually there is a simple explanation. We played rubbish that day. We didn’t deserve to win.”

Mark Carney, Joe Biden celebrate

Still, when the team scored the winning goal on Sunday, the announcers erupted: “The hunger is over! The curse be damned!”

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, his grandparents came from Mayohe also announced that the curse had been broken at the post office in X.

“I am proud to have roots in County Mayo,” Carney wrote.

US President Joe Biden, who has ancestral ties to Mayo, and share congratulations onlineas it does Noel and Liam Gallagher from Oasishis mother, Peggy, from Mayo.

Whether the curse is real or not, Gunnigan says this feels like a new era for Mayo.

“It is no exaggeration to say that the lives of all Mayo fans changed forever on Sunday,” he said. “I think we will look at it in different ways.”

Mayo manager Andy Moran echoed similar sentiments on Tuesday when he told a crowd of Mayo fans: “They laughed at us. They laughed at us, but they won’t laugh at us anymore.”

Gunnigan was still riding high Tuesday, his voice cracking with excitement.

He says he climbed Croagh Patrick, Ireland’s holy mountain, with his son Joe earlier in the day, only to find the view of County Mayo obscured by clouds.

“When we got to the top I said, ‘Joe, we don’t need to see anything anymore, because after Sunday, we have seen the promised land.