Search Results for 'Dublin'

So here we are again. This time it is is different. The lights are on. It is a darkening Dublin evening. Feel yourself, feel the sheer bulk of you. Look around and hear the power of what lies around you. The terraces and seats normally heaving with passion lie empty...but look to the sky and you know that it is not.

In a year like no other, tomorrow's All Ireland Football Final will be a showpiece like one we've never seen or felt before.

Mayo have had some rotten luck in All Ireland finals in recent years. They’ve pushed Dublin to the pin of their collar on numerous occasions and seen things just tilt against them.

James Horan has guided Mayo to a third All Ireland final as manager, he's played in two (three if you count the replay in 1996) himself and he's looking forward to trying to get Mayo over a line they've fallen short of eight times since they got back to the final for the since last winning it in 1951.

The number on the back of a shirt means relatively little these days in the game, with match-ups between different individuals taking players all over the park.

Only three times has Sam Maguire been hoisted in the air by a Mayo captain - Aidan O'Shea is the latest in a long line of those looking to follow in the footsteps of Sean Flanagan in 1950 and 1951 and Seamus O'Malley who was the first Mayo man to do it in 1936.

It's Christmas week. In normal circumstances we would be thinking about Santa Claus and Christmas parties. But these are not normal circumstances and we have the not so small matter of an All-Ireland senior football final to occupy ourselves. We will think about Christmas from around 7pm on Saturday evening.

It might not have been the 6-12 he joked last week about that he scored against Davitts in an underage club game back in the day, but the 4-9 that Cillian O'Connor netted in the All Ireland semi-final win over Tipperary was another record in the ledger for Cillian O'Connor - but there is one piece still missing that Ballintubber man craves from his roll of honour.

I hope some of you got to look at the wonderful games on TV over last weekend.

Never was the title of a chapter more apt than that penned by Athlone entrepreneur, Tanya Cannon, whose life experiences and learnings are crafted in BeLIFE or BeLIEf, a collection of empowering narratives from numerous co-authors laced with a theme of inspiration.