{"id":605726,"date":"2026-07-27T00:43:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T00:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/605726\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T00:43:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T00:43:10","slug":"aidan-oshea-mayo-people-can-look-people-in-the-eye-for-the-first-time-in-a-long-time-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/605726\/","title":{"rendered":"Aidan O\u2019Shea: \u2018Mayo people can look people in the eye for the first time in a long time\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

For a few moments, away from the centre of the on-field celebrations, Aidan O\u2019Shea stood with his two daughters among the reams of golden streamers scattered across the pitch.<\/p>\n

He was Mayo<\/a>\u2019s 18-year-old wonderkid when he made his debut way back in 2009. At the end of too many All-Ireland finals he had stood on the same Croke Park pitch with those same streamers tangled in his studs, and watched others walk up the steps to lift Sam.<\/p>\n

But the streamers were for Mayo this time.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo quote Rory McIlroy, what will we talk about next year? It\u2019s an unbelievable feeling. It was hard to watch at times, but the boys were just outstanding,\u201d he said with a smile.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs there any other sporting odyssey left?\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Shea, a substitute, didn\u2019t see a minute of game time but for the best part of two decades he had been at the forefront of his county\u2019s great longing. Mayo have a few more teenage wonderkids these days and yet one of the biggest cheers for any player lifting Sam Maguire was reserved for O\u2019Shea.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m waiting for somebody to come in and say, \u2018Oh, actually, something\u2019s gone wrong here and we\u2019ve to take this away\u2019. [The cup] is in the middle of the room there and it\u2019s an amazing feeling,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust buzzing for all the boys, the young fellas in particular and the boys, they\u2019ve put in a huge amount of shift. They\u2019ve taken a lot of flak over the last couple of years. Delighted for them to get the performance they got today.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unlikely, though, that anyone has taken more flak in Mayo than O\u2019Shea. He was often an easy target for criticism. But, year after year, he turned up, laced his boots, got his reward.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s genuinely not about me. This is all about that group there, Mayo people. When we came in all those years ago, we were all about trying to drive and change the narrative about Mayo people and Mayo football.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did that to a certain extent but we never got over the line. It\u2019s something that I was hell-bent on doing when I was a young fella growing up. I wanted it to be different, I wanted us to be taken seriously as a football county. I knew All-Irelands would come.<\/p>\n

\"GAAGAA All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Final, Croke Park, Dublin 26\/7\/2026
\nMayo vs Kerry
\nMayo\u2019s Aidan O’Shea and Kobe McDonald celebrate
\nMandatory Credit \u00a9INPHO\/Ryan Byrne <\/p>\n

\u201cWhether I\u2019d be in the room or not, I didn\u2019t know. It\u2019s not like this is out of the blue, we\u2019ve had decent players over the years and come up short in big games. I knew that it was going to happen. Obviously it\u2019s taken a long time but we can talk about something different now: Mayo are All-Ireland champions 2026 – can never take that away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both O\u2019Shea\u2019s parents, and his wife, are from Kerry but on Sunday he finally made his dad shed a tear.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy dad doesn\u2019t get emotional too often and it\u2019s only twice in his life he\u2019s ever got a emotional in front of me, the first was when S\u00e9amie won an under-21 All-Ireland. And I said I\u2019d love to make him emotional someday. It took me 18 years to do it but to see their reaction and my family\u2019s reaction is just magic. It is magic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carragh and six-month old Romee weren\u2019t around when this whole adventure started but they were there with him among the streamers of celebration on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cSix months old, she doesn\u2019t have a clue what\u2019s going on. I can tell her about the previous 18 years when she gets older. Carragh\u2019s obviously seen the heartbreak and Kristin has seen it as well, all the hard yards put in. I\u2019m buzzing.\u201d<\/p>\n

If O\u2019Shea was realising his sporting dream near the end of his career, Kobe McDonald has won Sam Maguire in just a single season. One and done, and off to Australia. If he never kicks a ball for Mayo again, he is already immortal. And if that does turn out to be the case, has there ever been a greater intercounty career?<\/p>\n

\u201cKobe\u2019s done seven games and he\u2019s out the door, it\u2019s unbelievable. I tried to tell him it\u2019s not how it usually works. It\u2019s just unbelievable, some of the guys have only played a couple of games and they\u2019re All-Ireland champions.\u201d<\/p>\n

And so, O\u2019Shea will be part of the Mayo squad bringing Sam Maguire across the Shannon on Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo finally be heading west on the train tomorrow [as champions]. We always used to have good craic on the train home. But by God, we\u2019re going to have a serious f**king craic tomorrow.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just can\u2019t wait. It\u2019s going to be an explosion. Mayo people can stand tall, they won\u2019t be bowing their heads. They\u2019ll be able to look people in the eye for the first time in a long time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we shy away from things from time to time. I like to think I haven\u2019t shied away from things. I hope Mayo people are infectious about it now, they\u2019ve waited a long time to enjoy this moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, too, has Aidan O\u2019Shea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For a few moments, away from the centre of the on-field celebrations, Aidan O\u2019Shea stood with his two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":605727,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[76],"tags":[10416,18,131567,19,17,26710,132],"class_list":["post-605726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-kerry-gaa","tag-eire","tag-football-championship","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mayo-gaa","tag-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116989172567024139","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=605726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/605727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=605726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=605726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=605726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}