Mayo feelings:  Joy is like grief. It only feels complete when shared

Final observations: The image. Kicks. Number Ones. Orange leader. The Cliffords. How many times in your life can you truly say that there is nowhere else in the world you’d rather be?

IT'S DONE: He might have liked the tap-in goal to put the ultimate seal on it, but likely not. Ending Irish sport's most excruciating curse was plenty good enough for Mayo's boy king Kobe McDonald, as Tommy Conroy's late score seals the deal at Croke Park.

The true measure of the occasion was written on the faces. It has been long established that the beauty of sport is what it does to its people. Ever since the hooter sounded just after 5pm last Sunday, the emotion of it all has been extraordinary to see.

Everyone has a different story. It was told in the various expressions, the physical convulsions, the euphoric nods. There were tearful embraces and salutes and lingering looks to the sky. It was there in Croke Park and its surroundings on Sunday night, it was there in the team hotel on Monday morning and it was there in Castlebar Monday evening.