Callinan's Carlow connection to Mayo's magic

“Years of hurt and disappointment ended in triumph…” 

That could very easily be an intro into a report detailing Mayo’s fabulous All-Ireland win over Kerry but that is actually the first line of a report in the Nationalist 15 October 1965 as Graiguecullen beat Timahoe by 1-10 to 1-8 to lift the Laois Senior title, the last won by the club.

Captain for the Carlow/Laois border side that day was the famous John ‘Badger’ Callinan.

'Badger' sadly passed away in 2015 but on Sunday, his son David sat in Croke Park watching his own son Sam line out at wing-back as Mayo secured the most significant victory in the county's modern history.

David, himself, grew up on JKL Avenue in Carlow and played his football with O’Hanrahans.

“I would have played up underage with lads like Niall English, Brian Walker, Breffni Hannon, Niall Murphy, all those lads,” said David on Monday, as he recalled his own career.

“We would have all come up underage together, a good team. I think it was probably the first good team at underage that O’Hanrahans had for a long time and a lot of those lads stayed on,and played on, and enjoyed great success with O’Hanrahans, thank God,” said David.

Life took David to Scotland as a young man but after meeting his wife Aileen, a Galway woman, he moved back to Ireland and lived in Kilkenny and then for a spell of about two years, back to Carlow.

Little did they know then but there was a future All-Ireland winner toddling around the streets of Carlow.

“Sam was born in Kilkenny actually, and then we had our next daughter while living in Carlow. Aileen being from the west wanted to move back out west so when the kids were small in 2006, we moved to Ballina. So, Sam lived his first year in Kilkenny and then had two in Carlow before we moved to Mayo when he was three years of age.” 

Once Sam began to take a keen interest in football, his talent became evident and he eventually progressed to the Mayo senior team.

“He loves football,” said proud father David.

“He has applied himself to it so well all these years, underage, and coming all the way up through. He loves it, and loves playing for Mayo, he is just so happy to play for Mayo. There's a lot of hardship that comes with playing for Mayo. You have some good days, but you have a lot of bad days too, unfortunately, but this year has just been fantastic,” he added.

Mayo supporters are used to going through the wringer so Sunday's final against Kerry was nothing unusual but David said his nerves were actually worse for the semi-final win over Louth than the final itself.

“My nerves weren’t too bad. It was a lot worse at the semi-final for some reason. It was just brilliant. The final ebbed and flowed, and they went ahead in the second half. Kerry came back in the middle and then again in the last 10 minutes but they held on, in fairness,” said David.

The scenes of celebration will live long in the memory for all those present but speaking on Monday, he was well aware that the party was only starting.

“We went back to the team hotel after the game. Myself and my wife and my two daughters, and Meabh's boyfriend, Billy, we were all at the table. It was very nice, very surreal, but it was great to see the players let their hair down. We took off soon after they had done their interviews with RTÉ and left them at it,” he said.

“The week of celebrating will take on a life of its own but they have the Club Championship coming up in a couple of weeks so they will get ready for that when it comes around. Sam and Ballina Stephenites have won the last three titles so they’ll be pushing hard for fourth in a year. He’ll be going from the green and red of Mayo to the green and red of Ballina, the same colours as Graiguecullen so it’s all aligned,” laughed David.