Seán Ó Raghallaigh (28) never met his grandfather, Billy Durkin, who played in goal on the All-Ireland-winning Mayo side of 1950, but he believes he inherited his love for sport from the Swinford native. A gifted athlete, Durkin died in 1978. He captained the victorious Mayo minor team of 1935, and the collection of medals he left behind included national titles in handball and Connacht championships in heavyweight boxing. Nothing can top the 1950 Celtic Cross, however. It was passed on to Ó Raghallaigh by an uncle four years ago. In the Davin stand at full-time on Sunday, celebrating the county’s first Sam Maguire in 75 years, he found himself clutching it.“I was by myself, and I had my hand on my chest, holding my medal,” Ó Raghallaigh says. All I could think of was the people that weren’t with me at that moment. I thought of my granny, who had prayed for many years for this day. She could never go to the All-Ireland finals herself; she didn’t have the heart for it. “She’d stay in the house in Swinford, and any time you’d go in on an All-Ireland Sunday, she’d be there praying to the microwave. It’s only for the fact that the Sacred Heart was above the microwave that any of us didn’t think she was cracked for all those years.”For years, his grandmother, Sadie Durkin, ran a shop, pharmacy and pub in Swinford with her husband, continuing to manage the business after his death. Keeping her in his thoughts, Ó Raghallaigh found himself pining for relatives living abroad. A video came through of his cousin Róisín, who played for the Mayo ladies’ football team before emigrating in 2023. A tribute to Billy Durkin who played on the Mayo All-Ireland-winning team in 1950 “[Seeing her] in a pub in London, crying in her girlfriend’s arms as the final whistle went, I thought of them spread across the whole globe in that moment,” he says.A Cavan native, Ó Raghallaigh’s connection with Mayo comes from his mother. He has made it to Croke Park for every final the county has appeared in since 2004, “whether in the stand or outside in a pub whinging that I didn’t get a ticket”. He is now his mother’s carer, and credits her determination with getting him inside the stadium so often over the years.[ Are you a Mayo person living abroad? How did you celebrate the All-Ireland win?Opens in new window ]“She’s the reason I care so much for Mayo,” he says. “I’m a proud Cavan man, but my Mayo side is strong, and that’s all down to her. She doesn’t have the mobility to go up to Croke Park; she wouldn’t have the capabilities to be there on a day like that. “She wouldn’t have the heart to actually watch it on the telly [either] ... She would’ve been the reason I was at so many of the finals in the first place. Bringing me there, getting me tickets, begging her brothers’ cousins, whatever, for a sniff of one in years gone by.”Mayo All Ireland Champions 1950 team. To accompany story written by Cian O'Connell on Seán Ó Raghallaigh, who is pictured wearing his grandfather's All-Ireland winner's medal from 1950. Other pics included of that team and a tribute to his grandfather, Billy Durkin. The occasion didn’t pass him by on Sunday. Well aware of its significance, Ó Raghallaigh endeavoured to soak in the reaction of supporters for “every point scored, every turnover won and every blow of the referee’s whistle”.“I know it’s going to be a memory, a day, that I’m going to cherish and think of for the rest of my life,” he says. “So every moment like that I tried to look at every part of the stand, to try and take in every wave, crescendo of people cheering and roaring. Just to try and commit it all to memory. I remember with the hooter going, it was pandemonium really. The whole place felt like it was lifted a thousand feet into the air.”