From the main street you can see the mural. A fist of defiance and the words that now define a town: ‘Newbridge or nowhere’.
St Conleth’s Park was the perfect venue for last weekend’s semi-final between Dr Crokes and Errigal Ciarán. The new stand looks immaculate. The colour on show was an ode to the artistry that was to follow.
In Cavan they cried good riddance and waved goodbye to 141 years of Gaelic football. Out with the old, in with the new.
In Kildare you hesitated and wondered while the wonder before you never so much as blinked.
Ruairí. Darragh. Goal.
To marvel at a man soloing a football is to marvel at the postman delivering post, but with Darragh Canavan, you just can’t help yourself. Even after Ruairí had unlocked the letter box from a village out of sight.
We’ll say Kildare Village, a designer outlet for the crème de la crème because this was boutique, luxury, and all the rest of it. Upper echelon football for snobs.
If the man I handed a score to on my entry to the ground had asked me for more on the way out for that five seconds alone I would have given it to him.
Tony Brosnan was sublime at the other end too.
Micháel Burns a man possessed and the pantomime villain as he hopped off the ground livid like you’ve never seen and soon jumped for joy only to collapse when Joe Oguz struck with another contender for the best goal I’ve ever seen live.
An eye for an eye, a score for a score, pay per view football in the maligned modern day that unfolded like the unloved, creased shirt at the bottom of the ironing basket and continued to unfold until it was the length and breadth of St Brigid’s immaculate blanket.
Scratch that. Tyrone’s own Philomena Begley’s actually. She can take the blanket from the bedroom and Errigal Ciarán can go walking once again. This time Croke Park as two Canavan’s go where their father never did in the white, blue and saffron.
Cuala know the holy grail all too well. This time they’ll not have a hurl between them, not that that will bother King Con. He’s walked up the Hogan Stand to collect the cup eight times on All-Ireland final day, six times with The Dubs and twice with his club.
Still he’ll want to break new ground, with brothers Eoghan and Niall by his side. In April he’ll be 29, back in a Dessie Farrell team bound for God knows where.
The unpredictability of this club game however suggests he might never be back on Sunday’s stage again.
Mick Fitzsimons has surely had that thought, even in passing, before the elephant in the room shakes him back to the here and now. That elephant being the small task of marking Darragh Canavan.
Rather you than me, but Fitzsimons has a knack for these so-called impossible tasks.
While Peadar Ó Cofaigh Byrne will do everything in his power to smother any speculative Joe Oguz rockets. Lightning don’t strike twice.
That’s precisely why we’re left with these two sides who have never graced this stage and that is why we’re looking at just Corofin and Crossmaglen having gone back-to-back in the 21st Century, almost a quarter of it gone.
Edmund Hillary was 33 when he climbed Everest. Jordan Romero was 13. Yuichira Miura was 80.
In a world where time waits for no man, your first chance might well be your last, regardless if you’re Mick Fitzsimons or Ruairí Canavan.
Regardless of the fact that you woke up with heavy legs.
Regardless of the fact your breakfast wouldn’t go down.
Regardless of the fact you missed every shot in the warm-up.
Regardless of the pressure.
Because just like your wedding day (the likelihood is) you will never be back. Ever.
And just like your wedding day, this has the potential to be one of the greatest days of your life.
The whispers have started. The heads turn like owls. The news is in and the groom shuffles his feet. He knows.
The bride is outside the church in Errigal.
If you don’t kiss her today, you never will.