PADDY WILL NEVER BE FORGOTTEN

Prendergast’s passing mourned far and wide

THEY had to improvise, so that’s what they did.

A makeshift bat wasn’t a problem. A couple of pieces of wood, a few nails.

The wickets and bails were also homemade and weren’t objects of beauty.

Still, they did the job.

But what to use for a ball? Cricket balls weren’t freely available in shops in Mayo in the 1950s.

So, again, they improvised. Some days, they used a sliotar. Other times, a tennis ball was the choice.

Paddy Prendergast, Sean Flanagan, Eamonn Mongey and Sean Mulderrig would colonise corners of Mayo fields and play cricket to their heart’s content.

All four played on the last Mayo team to win the AllIreland in 1951.

Team

All four played on the last Mayo team to beat Kerry on the way to claiming Sam Maguire.

And their dalliance with bat and ball shows what sets Mayo apart.

This was the time of the infamous Ban, when GAA players were suspended for playing foreign games.

But Flanagan, Prendergast and Co were fascinated by newsreel footage of Don Bradman and Freddie Trueman doing their thing.

So they decided to give cricket a bash.

In some Mayo pubs, you’ll still find a photograph of them larking about in front of wickets.

How they got around the Ban has never been explained.

That has always been the way with Mayo.

A little bit different, a little bit off-kilter.

Prendergast, who has passed away at 95, was the full-back on the Mayo team that won backto- back All- Irelands in 1950 and 1951.

Generations

He was an iconic figure, and became a touchstone for future generations.

He was loved far beyond the Mayo borders too.

Prendergast moved to Tralee in the 1960s and grew to love Kerry and Kerry people.

It had taken Mayo a replay to get past Kerry in the 1951 semi- finals, with Tom Langan scoring the critical goal. It came after Mayo claimed a kick- out taken by Kerry’s iconic full-back Paddy ‘Bawn’ Brosnan.

Fast forward 23 years to the morning of the 1974 All-Ireland final between Dublin and Galway.

Langan had been in ill health for a while and was near death at the Garda Hospital in the Phoenix Park.

“This fella arrived at the gates at Phoenix Park, at the Depot, unshaven and that and he says ‘I’m calling in to see Tom Langan’. The sergeant who was there says ‘I’m sorry, you won’t be able to see him because he’s very close to the end’. ‘Jaysus, I’d like to see him’,’’ Prendergast later recalled.

“The sergeant had a look at him and he knew he had come a long way. He said ‘well hang on a minute’ and he went upstairs. Langan was still alive and he came down and says ‘ look, go up’.

“He went up the stairs anyways and over and he caught Langan’s hand and of course Langan didn’t know or couldn’t talk to him so he held onto his hand and the tears coming down his face. The Bawn.

“By Jesus, when the Bawn felt that way, his feeling was very deep. Can you imagine coming up from Dingle? He had to see him.

“It’s probably one of the great things about the GAA. It’s very special between certain counties. We always had this with Galway more so than any other team and always had a great relationship with Kerry.”

Folklore

There have been few more things in the GAA more disrespectful than the supposed Mayo ‘curse’, which claims that the All-Ireland won’t return to the county until all of the 1951 team have passed away.

Prendergast is the last of the starters to die, sub Mick Loftus is still with us. But it’s been proven, time and again, by those who’ve dug into the folklore that the ‘curse’ is nonsense — that it never happened.

When RTE made a radio documentary ‘Bonfires in Bohola’ about the 1950/ 51 team, Prendergast came up with a colourful expression to describe the unlimited heartbreak of being a Mayo supporter.

“It has been my Via Dolorosa,’’ he said. From the Latin, it has a number of translations. Way of Grief. Way of Sorrows. Way of S Suffering. Painful Way.

It describes a whole world of p pain but what sets Mayo apart is the way they soak it up and come back fighting.

Prendergast’s sad passing brings to an end a sorrowful month that included a sixth All-Ireland final in 10 years. The fall- out has been painful. Fingers have been pointed. The feeling is that this was the one that got away. No defeat is harder to take than one where you didn’t perform.

That was the case with Mayo on September 11, beyond doubt.

Tyrone have been garlanded with plenty of praise and they had so many players on the top of their game on the day.

That was far from the case with Mayo.

Indeed, you could argue that only two or three of them came anywhere near close to performing at the level required.

Yet, with three minutes of normal time left, they were just three points behind Tyrone — one kick of the ball.

That is one of the reasons why Mayo have found this defeat particularly hard to digest.

Prendergast’s passing will give everyone pause. He will unite the county because everyone in Mayo had the highest respect for him.