Colin Sheridan: O'Mahony kept the faith in a football life less ordinary

Perhaps his last contribution to Gaelic football with Salthill is the easiest forgotten, but it tells the story of a man who put one thing above all others, the one thing he asked us all to keep; Faith.

2000: Then-Galway manager John O'Mahony. Pic: Tom Honan, Inpho

“After Mayo lost to Cork under Johno in 1989, there was an iconic photo of him on the field surrounded by Mayo fans, one of them holding a banner that read JOHN SAYS KEEP THE FAITH. Not long after, as if in an act of defiance, John’s wife Gerardine put up a sign outside their home that simply read ‘Keep the Faith.’ It was like something you’d see in deepest Texas in a town obsessed with high school football.

“The message required no explanation. Mayo was always a football-mad county, and that 1989 championship run gave belief to a team and a people that had endured decades of heartache and no little hardship.