Colin Sheridan: Let me tell you what it is like to be a Mayo man in Galway this week...

There will be no hysteria in Galway city this week, and that only adds to the sense of desolation Mayo people living there can feel on weeks such as this. There will be little or no talk of it in the butchers and bakers. Any maroon and white flags will likely be the product of some contrived social initiative, complete with pithy hashtag, rather than the impromptu act of a football- mad house.

FINAL WEEK: Galway’s Matthew Tierney celebrates with Robert Finnerty. ©INPHO/James Crombie

Watching Galway win All-Irelands as a Mayo man is like watching the girl you love marry someone else. Watching Galway win All-Irelands as a Mayo man living in Galway is like watching the girl you love marry someone else, the someone else is your best friend, with you as the best man. 

Being from Mayo, you think you know pain – the sporting kind – the pain of being good, but not quite good enough to win it all. The pain of being bad, but not quite bad enough to make you quit caring. The pain of hope and the pain of inevitable disappointment. The pain of the perpetual pity. There’s all that pain, and then there’s the pain of your glamorous, indifferent neighbour coveting the one thing you so desire. It’s a whole other level of pain. You tell yourself it’s better to have loved and lost, but, on those days, when Galway wander up to Dublin and perform the most brutal of eye wipes, you wished you’d never loved at all.