LIKE a champion boxer on the shoulders of his corner-men, Ethan Rafferty bellowed on the streets of Castletownkenneigh in county Cork: “One down, one to go.”
The Grange man had just thrown his final bullet to secure the All-Ireland road bowls title last Saturday.
He’d lost the final two years ago and then couldn’t take part last summer because of the broken ankle he suffered on club football duty.
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Bullets, as they call it, was brought over by William of Orange’s soldiers and since it settled in has always remained pretty much a preserve of the same two counties, Armagh and Cork.
The great John O’Mahony tried his hand at bringing the game to the Mayo-Roscommon border, where he was born and reared in the last house on the Mayo side, but it never took off.
His father Stephen, whose hometown was Drinagh in west Cork, came from a proud lineage of O’Mahony road bowlers that rolls on to this day.
Just over two weeks ago, John O’Mahony passed away.
He was the last man to take Galway up the steps of the Hogan Stand in 2001. Armagh came behind them a year later.
Neither county has been back since.
Before their All-Ireland semi-final win over Donegal, the current Galway footballers lined out in a ‘V’ formation to mark their assessment of him: a vanguard. Someone who led.
The sustained applause in Croke Park at the end of the short video tribute was one of the warmest tributes ever paid in the ground.
It felt organic, genuine. As though the people of Galway thought they could hold on to him for another while if they just kept on applauding.
We all go in time.
O’Mahony admitted in his autobiography that he perhaps should have went from the hotseat after the 2001 All-Ireland.
He stepped into 2003 trying to deal with a row that was none of his own making. Padraic Joyce’s club Killererin had refused to play extra-time in a club championship game against Carraroe the previous autumn and were expelled for it. They took a case to the High Court, won an injunction against Carraroe playing their next game, but ultimately lost the battle.
Galway almost lost Joyce over the head of it. He let it be known that he wasn’t for playing that year.
“There were even rumours doing the rounds that he might declare for Cork… But as angry as he was, I knew Pádraic would never do that because he was such a proud Galway man,” O’Mahony wrote.
The pair of them had butted heads the previous summer too. That’s what winners do.
But they retained a great relationship during and after.
“When the news came last Sunday morning, we were obviously heartbroken,” Joyce said after their win over Donegal nine days ago, a week to the day after O’Mahony’s passing.
“Obviously shed a tear because the man has meant so much to me personally and to Galway players. Our WhatsApp group from ‘98 and ‘01 was hopping. Lads were just really, really heartbroken, and you can’t be heartbroken unless you love someone.
“We loved him as a man. He was a great manager. He was a brilliant friend. Really good mentor as well to me over the last couple of years and I’ll miss talking to him, I’ll miss his phonecalls, I’ll miss his advice. Obviously I take a bit from him, he was ahead of his time as a manager in our time.”
At the back of Pádraic Joyce’s mind there has to be a sense that it is simply destiny that they should win it now.
But what of Armagh’s own incredible journey?
Sat in the upper tier of the Cusack Stand, the whole place was a sea of orange for their All-Ireland semi-final win over Kerry.
As extra-time began, we got chatting to the couple sat behind us.
It turned out the woman was Megan Grimley, sister of Armagh midfielder Niall.
She woke up the morning of the game and just cried for three hours solid at the thought of how much their brother Patrick would have enjoyed it all.
Patrick and his wife Ciera were taken from them in an horrific road accident last November in which their friend Ciara McElvanna, wife of 2002 All-Ireland winner Kevin, also died.
Niall Grimley was a starstruck wild card taken to Australia by Joe Kernan for the last international rules series eight years ago.
I can still recall meeting him for the first time outside the Irish changing room after the first test.
There’s not been an Armagh game in the time since that he’s walked past without speaking.
Sitting one afternoon a couple of years later filing my report from a game in a hotel in Cavan, a tap on the shoulder, the hand out. Brian Grimley, their father. Stands chatting 20 minutes. The absolute best of a man.
When the final whistle blew after the Kerry game, you just felt instantly compelled to turn around and give Megan Grimley a hug.
She was in tears again, booking a hotel through it.
It was another tiny glance at their strength, their ability to keep smiling through the pain.
Niall has come back from a broken neck suffered almost two years ago to launch himself into the Allstar conversation with a series of brilliant displays.
If Patrick was here now, his heart would be broken with trying to sort out the tickets as Madden’s inexhaustible club secretary.
240 into most club memberships in Armagh doesn’t go. But how they’d have loved for him to be here, doing the thing fair, sorting it all out.
Everyone has a story and you’re never more than three feet from someone that has their own fire burning within, their own reason for wanting to be the best that they can be.
Sunday’s hurling final was an incredible celebration of Irish culture and sport.
I missed the first 20 minutes getting home from a tour of north Armagh for a piece that will appear in The Irish News later this week.
The intense pride of the people of Lurgan and Portadown, two urban centres with difficult pasts and presents, hoping that weeks like these that come along so seldom can steer them to a better future.
Their communities have new vanguards in Stefan Campbell, Andrew Murnin, Barry McCambridge, Tiernan Kelly, Conor Turbitt, Oisín Conaty, following on from the Kieran McNallys and Brian Mallons and Andrew McCanns that helped build the fire for them.
Kieran McGeeney has had a tough few weeks himself.
Pádraic Joyce too.
Life is always there in the background.
For two hours on a Sunday, everyone can place a suspension their other thoughts until Sean Hurson’s final whistle goes and life comes flooding back in.
One All-Ireland down for the summer, one to go.
The circle of life is never complete, but it seldom feels closer to touch than at 3.29pm on All-Ireland Sunday.