The moments of happiness we enjoy take us by surprise. It is not that we seize them, but that they seize us. And so, has been the case this week as we bask in the glory of a victory that was as thrilling as it was unexpected.
It has been a hell of year in terms of sadness. Tragedies on the roads, illness taking away the lives of those we love, despair at global events.
The general disarray of world affairs is not one to fill us with happiness, to send us to sleep content and not to worry about the morning after. In a society still traumatised by the forced closedown of a few years back, it has for many people been a struggle to have the certainty of normality, a state that is often undervalued.
However, last Saturday evening, as the sun set low over the west, a cloud of happiness bounced above the heads of all Galway people when our senior football team beat Dublin at Croke Park. Let us not lose the run of ourselves in terms of silverware for it was just a quarter final, but in terms of a welcome boost, it was priceless.
The sight of Padraig Joyce at his press conference, with his young daughter Jodie and his son Charlie by his side. Well, it would melt the hearts.
Jodie and Charlie are a constant at his post-game briefings now, and what a welcome sight they are. They are a constant reminder that no matter who you are, what you are, and what you have just achieved, that there is a family aspect to ground you, to make a connection back to the people who matter and the communities who support your endeavours.
As a Mayoman, I am well versed in how defeat and despair can be grasped form the jaws of victory, and in one sense over the years, this has made me enjoy victory and contentment all the more. In particular, the state of contentment which is as much as any of us should strive for.
But the sheer joy and happiness that followed the weekend win has lifted the city and county. It is hard to get used to early summer All-Irelands. I think the decision to shift them still smacks of lockdown; and robs the returning classes to school the joy of having the shiny new silverware paraded fresh from the fight.
I know many of this current Galway squad, and a finer bunch of young men you would be hard pressed to find. They have eschewed any sense of inferiority complex in the pursuit of victory. They are a squad honed on the work-hard principles that made Joyce the player he was. Each player who went onto that pitch had a job of work to do, and by God, they did it.
Often for teams, you can do this and still fall to the sucker punch, but on this occasion, Galway rose to every challenge. In one sense, they are etched from the place that reared them. And that perhaps more than anything else is what made last Saturday’s win all the more pleasing.
And so they have lifted our summer; they have given us a bucketful of hope.
In return for that, let them know they have our backs. Let PJ and his crew finetune them for the challenges ahead, and let us love them for what they have given us this summer. There is a bounce in the step of every Galwayperson this week; and in the steps of many more as well at the sheer honesty and freshness of what they achieved sinks in.
