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<\/p>\nSAM HADN\u2019T EVEN been hoisted into the sky over Croker by an ecstatic Captain Coyne on Sunday, when various versions of the same gag began whipping around Insta, Facebook and X.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll funerals are postponed in Mayo on Monday to ensure the riotous returning heroes doesn\u2019t cross paths with a cort\u00e8ge,\u201d cackled the Irish internet.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
No need for any explanation for the home crowd \u2013 even the dogs on the street could bark the story of how the victorious Mayo football team of 1951 failed to pay their respects to a funeral they passed through the village of Foxford when en route home to celebrate, prompting the enraged priest to unleash a fearsome curse: \u201cFor as long as ye all live, Mayo won\u2019t win another All-Ireland.\u201d<\/p>\n
And so it came to pass. For 75 long years.<\/p>\n
The curse was news, however, to most of the international media who were equally gripped by both electrifying clips of a thrilling sporting contest that appeared to be \u2013 as one US journalist bemusedly put it \u2013 \u201ca hybrid of soccer, rugby and basketball\u201d, and by the story of The Longest Curse.<\/p>\n
The holy hex was invoked everywhere \u2013 Australian TV, the New York Times, the Taipei Times and the BBC.<\/p>\n
All recounted how Mayo had made it to 11 All-Ireland finals since 1951, returning home empty-handed each time, and how this year was their first appearance in a final since Paddy Prendergast, the last member of that ill-fated team had died in September 2021. (Another squad member, Michael Loftus, died in 2023.)<\/p>\n
Whether one believes that Jesus actually hailed from Galway and the curse was kosher, or that curses are superstitious tomfoolery and Mayo prevailed against every single bookies\u2019 odds due to skill, tactics, talent and unshakeable self-belief, makes no difference at all.<\/p>\n
The curse is forever stitched into the tapestry of Ireland\u2019s magical stories and cannot now be unpicked, no matter how many of Mayo\u2019s sons and daughters, delirious with relief and joy, roared \u201cCURSE BE DAMNED\u201d as the 70-minute hooter set off pandemonium at GAA HQ and far beyond it.<\/p>\n
But maybe, just maybe, damning the curse into oblivion would be a grave national mistake. It could be time that Ireland embraces the C-word with gusto.\n<\/p>\n
Spells, charms and capitalism<\/p>\n
First of all, at a time when the government is flinging money at the tourism sector in order to try and lure visitors here all year round, curses could be a great help altogether.<\/p>\n
Tourism Ireland, an organisation which rarely misses a trick, hit the tourism jackpot with the Wild Atlantic Way wheeze, and now there\u2019s barely a network of boreens left in Ireland which hasn\u2019t been saddled with some class of fancy-schmancy moniker such as the Midlands Mystical Maze.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s face it \u2013 we\u2019re a nation steeped in curses, hexes, spells, charms, superstitions and jinxes, and yet have so far signally failed to harness the money-spinning power of piseogs.<\/p>\n
Irish people are widely hailed\/castigated for our prodigious propensity for the other type of cursing (including the frequent deployment of the other more verboten c-word), but far fewer know how seriously we can take the piseog.<\/p>\n
The piseog is a particularly malevolent act of ill-wishing, far more severe than run-of-the-mill begrudgery, and usually unleashed in disgruntlement against a neighbour in rural Ireland.<\/p>\n
A common one involved the ill-wisher burying eggs on the land of the neighbour: as the eggs rotted so too did the dweller\u2019s fortune. Or the more hair-raising piseog of stealing a farmer\u2019s last sheaf of the harvest \u2013 itself believed to bring luck to the household \u2013 and using it in a voodoo-style ritual where it was given the name of its owner and \u201ckilled\u201d by stabbing.<\/p>\n
It was then buried and as it decayed, so too did its owner.<\/p>\n
Our landscape fair bristles with untouchable fairy-forts and hawthorn trees left unbothered by builders or farmers for fear of supernatural repercussions, and also with cursing stones and haunted houses.<\/p>\n
Likewise, our history is awash with wild stories of banshees, druids and witches, of the cursed swan-children of Lir, of Mad Sweeney, the king cursed by a Christian saint.<\/p>\n
Sure, historical battlefields, ancient castles, sacred hills and neolithic passage tombs are big draws for visitors, but in a society regularly gripped by stories involving spells or the supernatural \u2013 just look at roaring successes such as Harry Potter and Stranger Things \u2013 Ireland is seriously missing a magic trick here.<\/p>\n
Where is the Great Hibernia Hex Trail, where guides can scare the crap out of tourists while also planting the notion that we may be the land of a hundred thousand welcomes, but we can also jinx your arse and the arses of your descendants, should the mood take us?<\/p>\n
A more secure world<\/p>\n
And here lies the other reason for Ireland embracing the c-word. Not only could it be to our fiscal advantage, but also greatly benefit our defence capabilities in an increasingly belligerent world.<\/p>\n
Much to the chagrin of our more hawkish European comrades, Ireland is a laggard in amassing fighter jets, warships and the like (though to be fair, it\u2019s not unreasonable to think that an island nation in a strategically critical location would have at least one auld submarine at its disposal).<\/p>\n
Instead, we could arm ourselves with curses to keep our enemies on their toes. We\u2019ve been diplomatic for long enough, putting much stock in our \u2018soft power\u2019, our ability to forge networks and alliances to wield influence, and our expert use of pl\u00e1m\u00e1s to get our way.<\/p>\n
The European parliament could henceforth resound to war cries of \u201cGo nd\u00e9ana an diabhal dr\u00e9imire do chn\u00e1mh do dhroma\u201d (that the Devil will make a ladder out of your spine), or a dozen of Ballyfree\u2019s finest eggs could be quietly planted in the grounds of Vladimir Putin\u2019s most palatial dacha.<\/p>\n
If\/when he accidentally and fatally hurtles from a high window in the Kremlin, then we can loudly claim credit for his demise.<\/p>\n
And this is the secret sauce with hexes and curses \u2013 everyone eventually suffers a bit of bad luck or a setback, so they\u2019ll work sooner or later.<\/p>\n
And while it\u2019s damn hard to prove a disaster was the result of an Irish spell-caster raining maledictions on you, it\u2019s bloody impossible to prove that it wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Say Donald Trump takes a figary some morning to slap punitive tariffs on Ireland for a perceived slight, a national casting of a curse that the presidential mickey will wither and disappear overnight would prompt a speedy TACO from the famously superstitious commander-in-chief.<\/p>\n
And how could he prove it didn\u2019t happen? Do a big reveal on Fox & Friends?<\/p>\n
So, we have a window of opportunity right now, while the world\u2019s gaze is fixed on the Mayo curse. Sure even our language is beautifully set up for cursing, both in terms of drama and grammar.<\/p>\n
Wishing bad cess \u201con\u201d someone just seems much worse. For instance, one which could be hurled at any irksome American right now with particular resonance is \u201cBuinneach dhearg go dtigidh ort\u201d, which translates as \u201cthat you may have red diarrhoea\u201d.<\/p>\n
And then just watch \u2018em run.<\/p>\n
Lise Hand is a journalist and writer. This column runs every Wednesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAM HADN\u2019T EVEN been hoisted into the sky over Croker by an ecstatic Captain Coyne on Sunday, when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":574457,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[33557,242347,4183,61,60,229656,8764,43,242348,242349],"class_list":["post-574456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-column","tag-curses","tag-gaa","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-lise-hand","tag-mayo","tag-news","tag-piseog","tag-the-curse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574456","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=574456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/574457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=574456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=574456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=574456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}