THE cavalcade takes leave of the M1 at Newry as the race to beat the bus enters its final leg on the most dramatic of days. Through Mayobridge, a steady procession lights the pilgrims’ path against the blanket of black, the narrow bends of the Seven Sisters winding the way upwards before Hilltown, then home, and a party excitedly awaiting its guests of honour.
Almost 12 hours earlier, the people of Kilcoo lined the street in hope to send off their heroes. None, least of all those waving out the window at familiar faces all around, could have imagined what would unfold before they made the return journey on Saturday night.
There’s winning an All-Ireland, and there’s winning an All-Ireland with a goal nine seconds into added time at the end of extra-time in a game that was gone, salvaged, then gone again. Cometh the hour, though, cometh the men - Jerome Johnston rifling to the net when a shot from brother Ryan, brilliantly found by youngest sibling Shealan, was deflected back into his path.
Ahead of the final the Johnstons’ father, Jerome sr, said he felt like a child in the days leading up to Christmas – “you just hope you get the present you want”.
Courtesy of his eldest son’s left boot, all Kilcoo had asked for was delivered.
“The best feeling in the world,” he said, “Santa Claus is real.”
Black and white flags flutter the length of the village but its streets are empty, barely a light on in a living room. Everybody, instead, has relocated to the true heart of this community – the club. There, it’s the same as it ever was.
Amid the madness, oblivious to the enormity of what transpired earlier, young children play out their own All-Ireland final beneath the floodlights, laughs and screams filling the night sky.
Everywhere else, deep conversation and disbelief. Pockets of people gather in front of the clubrooms and down the path near the field, each reliving different aspects of the game, all barely able to make sense of the finish.
Two years ago Kilcoo played well and lost to Corofin. On Saturday they were well below their own standards but came back up the road with the Andy Merrigan Cup. Funny old game.
After such epic occasions, the contrast between agony and ecstasy is always at its most stark. Deep in the bowels of Croke Park, Kilmacud manager Robbie Brennan put on a brave face in the post-match media room but, once freed, headed straight for the sanctity of the empty street and a suck on a cigarette.
The Croke’s players file from their changing room, heads bowed, eyes red raw, a short but silent bus journey back to Stillorgan awaits. Kilcoo know that feeling all too well.
This time around, though, the glory belongs to them. The party starts in the “lucky” changing room – “six out of the last seven All-Ireland winners have been in here,” says the steward manning the door – and threatens not to stop.
You get the feeling they would have stayed in there all night if they could, cocooned in each other’s company, savouring every second of a journey that started last September but, in truth, began many years before.
It is for this reason that nobody is ever forgotten, the ties between club and community forever entwined. Kilcoo’s success is everybody’s success, likewise any suffering is shouldered by all.
“I suppose even in the week that's in it,” said assistant boss Conleith Gilligan in the moments after the game, “[vice-chairman] Roger Morgan, his grandson Odhran is in hospital in the Royal. Getting it pretty tight.
“And Roger has been brilliant to us, the week that’s in it. If you think about the final whistle, Roger was delighted. And it’s probably the only respite he’d had for that time. You do think about the enjoyment it gives to people that are getting it tight locally.”
Plan A and plan B were put in place for a homecoming but, given how much of a hammer blow it would been to come back up the road empty-handed again, the latter was unlikely to ever see the light of day.
Two years ago, Kilcoo were still basking in the warm afterglow of a first Ulster title. Perspective could be found even amid the darkness. This time it was different – nothing but victory would do. Carpe Diem reads the inscription on the mountain, those words coming into view for the players just after 11pm as the low rumble of tyre on tarmac signalled their arrival home.
The day had been seized, now was time to celebrate, the icy wind an utter irrelevance.
Club chairman Terry O’Hanlon was captain of teams that finished runners-up in Division Three and Division Two to eventually earn a place among Down’s elite. Like so many, he dare not ever have dreamt of days like this – yet here he was, welcoming Kilcoo, the All-Ireland champions, onto Pairc Eoghan Rua.
“Kings of Ireland,” he smiled proudly.
Gilligan, sponsor Paddy Maginn and the joint captains, Aidan Branagan and Conor Laverty, also spoke as crowds huddled in along the bank – with Laverty paying tribute to the long-serving Sean O’Hanlon, who stepped away from the panel last year after 20 years, and Darragh O’Hanlon.
The former Down ace, captain when Kilcoo claimed the county title in 2017, was forced to retire recently, bringing an unfortunate end to a three year injury nightmare when all he wanted was to get back for days like this.
“I know that Darragh wasn’t able to strip out and he had to take a bit of hard news,” said Laverty, “but the one thing I will say – whenever people are writing the history of this journey, your chapter and your legacy will definitely not be forgotten.”
And then it was over the man whose voice is seldom heard.
A hush descended as Mickey Moran took the microphone, Saturday’s victory marking an end to his own personal All-Ireland heartache, having endured defeat four times on final day with Mayo (2006), Slaughtneil (2015, 2017) and Kilcoo (2020).
Amid the frenzy after the whistle, the Maghera man walked slowly towards the goals at the Hill end before bowing down and kissing the sacred, sometimes cursed, turf below - right at the point where Jerome Johnston had sent Kilcoo into orbit. Moran must have wondered many times would this moment ever come. Well now it had.
“To these boys here,” he said, pointing to the men standing in an arc behind, “there’s a saying ‘make an old boy happy’, well you see in that first half? You made a happy boy old... I love them to pieces. For dedication, for sacrificing, for being humble and just being honest.
“These lads here, I never thought I’d reach a point in my life, in terms of managing and coaching, where you get a team that you could work with, and they work with you, and at the end of the day, you could say when they go out on the pitch, they’re in charge.
“They’ve got their just rewards, the club’s got its just rewards, and to be champions of Ireland, it’s phenomenal. I said to them on Friday night, ‘you do not deserve – you have to go there and do it, then you can say we deserve this’.
“To Richie, Barry and Caelan [all McEvoy], what men. You boys deserve a medal because of the work and the effort you put in. I came here a very innocent old man, and Richie has now got me halfway to hell – and I’m enjoying it!
“It’s been a big effort, and to the players – thank you so much, from me and my family, for what you’ve done. I love this place. Enjoy being All-Ireland champions.”
Listening on from yards away was former Armagh goalkeeper Patrick Morrison, who has been working with Magpies ’keeper – and goalscorer supreme, if you take his word for it – Niall Kane.
Saturday marked three years since the passing of Patrick’s father, John.
Mickey Moran and John Morrison formed a unique double-act that none who had the good fortune to experience will ever forget. ‘Beefer’ would have been smiling down on his son, and his old friend.
As the crowds started to disperse and the party moved elsewhere, conversations carried on towards the gate. The familiar figure of Anthony Devlin shook his head still, hours later, as he clasped hands and bear-hugged almost anyone nearby.
It was the image of Devlin’s jump for joy that adorned back pages when Kilcoo reached a different promised land back in 2009. Then, realising the impossible dream of a senior county title was everything. The ultimate.
How far they came to get there. How far they have come since.
“If somebody had told me when I started playing senior football at 15 in ’95/’96, that we’d win a senior Down championship some day, I’d have took the hand off them and everything else that goes along with it. I wouldn’t have believed them.
“This here today, I never believed for a second this could happen. Like, I remember two or three of us being out in the pub on St Patrick’s Day, watching Crossmaglen in an All-Ireland final.
“I says ‘boys, look at the style of football those boys are playing - we could play that style and win championships’. There was a couple of giggles, then one boy says ‘you know what? You’re probably right’. But it was a dream, nothing more. I was talking like I wanted other people to believe what I was saying when I probably didn’t really believe it myself.
“Then you look at where we are now. Well after today, the big man can take me now...”
