This Thursday in Castlebar, Jim Carney’s hugely successful book will have its Mayo launch at 6.30pm in Castle Books on Main Street. On the face of it, a book titled ‘Seán Purcell and Frank Stockwell – From a childhood friendship … to Gaelic football fame and glory’ might appear to be solely a Galway football book on the incredible duo […]
Alright. So, I shouldn’t have taken the Galway flag from its perfectly positioned place on our kitchen door and thrown it on the ground on Sunday night. And it probably wasn’t a good idea to sing – to the air of ‘If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands’ – “You can stick your Connacht medal up your […]
With our second emphatic win in a week, the coverage we’re getting at the minute makes for easy reading. I’ve a particular interest myself in seeing the reports on last night’s match, as I wasn’t at it and only caught some of the first half on Midwest. I’m really looking forward to sitting down in front of the TV and […]
It’s hard not to grab the attention of the nation when you beat the last two All-Ireland champions by a combined 17 points in seven days. After beating 2022 champs Kerry by seven points last Saturday, Mayo followed it up with an emphatic 10-point win over 2021 champions Tyrone tonight. Mayo were, as against Kerry, solid and disciplined at the […]
Ah – the things you do for love. Myself and my Tuam-ian fiancée met just one month out from the All-Ireland final in 2016. To be exact, it was the night before Mayo’s All-Ireland semi-final clash with Tipperary. On the weekend of the final she came to Dublin and met my sister for the very first time and, while she […]
I remember Donald Rumsfeld talking once about what we know. To paraphrase, he said that there are things that we are aware we know (Known knowns), things we know we don’t know (Known unknowns) and things that we don’t know we don’t know (Unknown unknowns). I was thinking of how this might be relevant to the Mayo GAA Senior football […]
This piece, written by my late father, John Gunnigan Snr, was published on the blog in December 2013 under the ‘Akamore Man’ nom de plume. It first appeared in the 2013 edition of the Annagh annual magazine. In light of his passing on 11th November this year, it seems appropriate to feature the piece here again. Rest in peace, Dad. Now that […]
There are decades where nothing happens and there are weeks where decades happen. That quote, attributed to Lenin, seems more than a little apposite from my standpoint right now. A week ago today, my father died and the seven days since have passed in a dizzying blur. Everything has changed but it all still seems in large part like a […]
I recently proposed to my long-term girlfriend and long-suffering Galway GAA fanatic (2017 aside). Unlike Mayo of the last decade, she didn’t leave me sweating and with my heart in my mouth and said yes after repeating thrice “you’re messing…is this serious?” No, I’m just on one knee for the good of my health. You would think that that moment […]
In two recent articles, I raised a number of concerns that caused considerable debate. It is now worth revisiting these concerns to see if anything has changed. In the first article, before the Galway game, I stated that it was statistically likely that we would have to beat both Kerry and Dublin to get to an All-Ireland final. It’s almost […]