{"id":572218,"date":"2026-07-28T14:40:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T14:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/572218\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T14:40:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T14:40:10","slug":"all-ireland-winners-medal-from-1950-witnesses-the-end-of-mayos-75-year-wait-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/572218\/","title":{"rendered":"All-Ireland winner\u2019s medal from 1950 witnesses the end of Mayo\u2019s 75-year wait \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Se\u00e1n \u00d3 Raghallaigh (28) never met his grandfather, Billy Durkin, who played in goal on the All-Ireland-winning Mayo<\/a> side of 1950, but he believes he inherited his love for sport from the Swinford native. <\/p>\n

A gifted athlete, Durkin died in 1978. He captained the victorious Mayo minor team of 1935, and the collection of medals he left behind included national titles in handball and Connacht championships in heavyweight boxing. <\/p>\n

Nothing can top the 1950 Celtic Cross, however. It was passed on to \u00d3 Raghallaigh by an uncle four years ago. In the Davin stand at full-time on Sunday, celebrating the county\u2019s first Sam Maguire in 75 years<\/a>, he found himself clutching it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was by myself, and I had my hand on my chest, holding my medal,\u201d \u00d3 Raghallaigh says. All I could think of was the people that weren\u2019t with me at that moment. I thought of my granny, who had prayed for many years for this day. She could never go to the All-Ireland finals herself; she didn\u2019t have the heart for it. <\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019d stay in the house in Swinford, and any time you\u2019d go in on an All-Ireland Sunday, she\u2019d be there praying to the microwave. It\u2019s only for the fact that the Sacred Heart was above the microwave that any of us didn\u2019t think she was cracked for all those years.\u201d<\/p>\n

For years, his grandmother, Sadie Durkin, ran a shop, pharmacy and pub in Swinford with her husband, continuing to manage the business after his death. Keeping her in his thoughts, \u00d3 Raghallaigh found himself pining for relatives living abroad. A video came through of his cousin R\u00f3is\u00edn, who played for the Mayo ladies\u2019 football team before emigrating in 2023. <\/p>\n

\"AA tribute to Billy Durkin who played on the Mayo All-Ireland-winning team in 1950 <\/p>\n

\u201c[Seeing her] in a pub in London, crying in her girlfriend\u2019s arms as the final whistle went, I thought of them spread across the whole globe in that moment,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

A Cavan native, \u00d3 Raghallaigh\u2019s connection with Mayo comes from his mother. He has made it to Croke Park for every final the county has appeared in since 2004, \u201cwhether in the stand or outside in a pub whinging that I didn\u2019t get a ticket\u201d. He is now his mother\u2019s carer, and credits her determination with getting him inside the stadium so often over the years.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Are you a Mayo person living abroad? How did you celebrate the All-Ireland win?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s the reason I care so much for Mayo,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m a proud Cavan man, but my Mayo side is strong, and that\u2019s all down to her. She doesn\u2019t have the mobility to go up to Croke Park; she wouldn\u2019t have the capabilities to be there on a day like that. <\/p>\n

\u201cShe wouldn\u2019t have the heart to actually watch it on the telly [either] … She would\u2019ve been the reason I was at so many of the finals in the first place. Bringing me there, getting me tickets, begging her brothers\u2019 cousins, whatever, for a sniff of one in years gone by.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"MayoMayo All Ireland Champions 1950 team. To accompany story written by Cian O’Connell on Se\u00e1n \u00d3 Raghallaigh, who is pictured wearing his grandfather’s All-Ireland winner’s medal from 1950. Other pics included of that team and a tribute to his grandfather, Billy Durkin. <\/p>\n

The occasion didn\u2019t pass him by on Sunday. Well aware of its significance, \u00d3 Raghallaigh endeavoured to soak in the reaction of supporters for \u201cevery point scored, every turnover won and every blow of the referee\u2019s whistle\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know it\u2019s going to be a memory, a day, that I\u2019m going to cherish and think of for the rest of my life,\u201d he says. \u201cSo every moment like that I tried to look at every part of the stand, to try and take in every wave, crescendo of people cheering and roaring. Just to try and commit it all to memory. I remember with the hooter going, it was pandemonium really. The whole place felt like it was lifted a thousand feet into the air.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Se\u00e1n \u00d3 Raghallaigh (28) never met his grandfather, Billy Durkin, who played in goal on the All-Ireland-winning Mayo…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":572219,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[110979,4183,61,60,4185,43],"class_list":["post-572218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-football-championship","tag-gaa","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mayo-gaa","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=572218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572218\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/572219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}