Kieran Shannon: Defiant Garrymore will only bend for The Prayer

Knockmore's Oliver Armstrong turns past Breaffy's Aidan O'Shea in Kiltimagh. Pic: Conor McKeown

Just before they take to the field on Sunday for the club’s first county final in 44 years, the players of Garrymore will go on bended knee, bow their heads and carry out a pre-match tradition you’d more associate with south Texas than south Mayo.

The Prayer goes back to the 1940s when a legendary club stalwart Jim Mannion began leading everyone in a rendition of the Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be in light of a bit of an injury crisis the club, already severely stretched for numbers, was experiencing. The injury crisis passed, the ritual stuck.