TODAY AIDAN O’SHEA will run out at Croke Park on All-Ireland final day for the fourth time.
He first featured in a showpiece as a minor in 2008 against Tyrone before making the step up to senior showdowns in 2012 and 2013.
But it’s been a day that he’s circled in the calendar for some time. Making the pilgrimage from Breaffy was a September tradition at home, Jim and Sheila O’Shea faithfully ferrying their children to Jones Road.
“The year the Hogan Stand was only at the lower level, it still hadn’t been fully built. I think that was ’01, Galway won the All-Ireland beating Meath.
“That would have been my first memory. I would have gone to every All-Ireland final from ’01 right through to probably my first final playing, the minor final in ’08.
“It’s obviously the day of the year every GAA fan wants to get to. I was lucky enough to be brought to a lot of them.
“I was just too young in ’96 and ’97 to go to see Mayo but I was very much aware of what was going on. I followed Kerry a lot growing up because of Mam and Dad. They’d huge success through the noughties so I would have seen a lot of them.”
His football education has taken place in Mayo but parental roots made an impression when it came to selecting his football idols.
“Mike Frank Russell would have been Dad’s club at home in Laune Rangers. ’96 when they won the All-Ireland, there would have been huge excitement in Killorglin.
“Mike Frank would have been the young fresh kid on the block. He continued that form right through. He was one of the players that’s unheralded really, he’s won nearly everything in the game, Hogan Cups, club All-Ireland etc.
“He would have been a player I would have looked up to alright.”
That’s the Kerry links in the O’Shea development, the Westmeath angle in the narrative has not been as deeply explored.
When Mayo clashed with Westmeath at the end of July in a fourth round qualifier, it was a novel angle for a player who was born in Mullingar on 29 June, 1990.
“First time playing them in competitive championship football,” says Aidan.
“It was funny because Dad would have won county championships with (Mullingar) Shamrocks back the years.
“There’s a connection there with Denis Corroon, the Westmeath midfielder, his father would have played with my Dad. I was only in Mullingar a couple of months, then moved to Ballinasloe and then we settled in Breaffy.”
It there that the Mayo football development took place. This afternoon the 26 year-old will have two brothers for company – Seamus (29) and Conor (23) – as Mayo seek to end the famine that stretches back to 1951.
In 2014 the trio started in a championship game for the first time in the Connacht semi-final against Roscommon. It was only the third time that three brothers (Mortimers from Shrule/Glencorrib and Laffey’s from Moy Davitts the others) had been part of a Mayo starting fifteen on championship day.
Since then Aidan and Seamus have remained mainstays of this Mayo team. Conor’s development was stalled but he has made his mark in 2016.
“I think Conor hasn’t got as much game time over the last number of years as he would have liked. We’ve probably had a very settled team and it’s been hard to break into.
“Anyone who knows him knows the talent level he has got is huge. It’s probably his first league campaign not disrupted by injury. He broke his ankle the back end of the previous winter.
“It took him a bit longer than myself and Seamie. He probably felt the pressure coming in under the spotlight of his two brothers.
“Look we’re part of the panel as much as anyone else, we’re marking each other and battling each other. It’s probably something for the family perspective having three from the one household, it adds to the occasion for the family.
“We’re doing our utmost as three individuals trying to do our best for the cause. We bounce ideas off each other and we’ve a good understanding with each other.”
Sprung from the bench in the semi-final against Tipperary, Conor made a telling impact with that game-breaking second goal.
“When I saw him swivel on it, I had my head in my hands, thinking what’s he doing?”, laughs Aidan.
“It was a good finish though. In fairness I can’t criticise that one, it was one we needed.”
The O’Shea family have three runners in today’s senior race but don’t lack interest in the minor showdown either.
“My little cousin is playing for the Kerry minors, David Shaw. He’s not so little, he’s about six foot four. He’d be my Dad’s nephew.
“He’s going for two-in-a-row minors and a Hogan Cup (last April), so that’s not bad.”
After the minor starter comes the senior main course and Mayo’s latest attempt to end the county’s torturous wait for Sam Maguire.
They’ve traveled the circuitous route this summer and hope negotiating those awkward qualifier hurdles will stand to them.
“There was huge pressure on us to perform and a lot of people expected us to fail”, outlines O’Shea.
“We stumbled across most of the victories all the way to the Tyrone game. We haven’t played the kind of fluent football that we’ve been known for over the last couple of years in any games this year for long periods.
“We’ve been coming out the right side of the results and definitely not been playing well. Maybe when confidence was a bit lower earlier in the season when we lost to Galway, that kind of experience and durability to see us through those games stood to us.
“We’re there now and it’s about getting the job done.”
AIB, proud sponsors of the GAA Football Championship, teamed up with Mayo footballer Aidan O’Shea in his hometown of Castlebar ahead of the final when the Breaffy man will line out against Dublin.
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