Mike Quirke: It’s like a funeral - and you’re in the back of the hearse

On Monday night I brought my two small boys down town in Tralee to take a look at the most dreaded aspect of losing an All-Ireland final for the players – the homecoming. The dark grey weather matched the sombre mood on the streets and in the second bus.

It’s bad enough when the final whistle blows in Croke Park and somebody else is celebrating and about to take home ‘your’ trophy. Your whole body feels numb. Unsure of where to go or what to do, you go into a kind of shock.

You instantly think of the people you’ve left down - your family, parents and grandparents who have the house nearly burned down several times with the amount of holy candles they have lit during the month. A million thoughts racing around your head. ‘How could this happen?’