On Reek Sunday morning, I checked out of a B&B near Westport, leaving my bag and laptop, and got one of the local minibus-taxis out to Murrisk. The plan was to be up and down the mountain and back into town well before throw-in in the All-Ireland final. I’d write a rough draft of the pilgrimage colour piece, then watch the football, tweaking my copy to reflect Mayo’s latest heroic failure. Then I’d hit “send” in time to catch the last train back to Dublin, something I had failed to do on the previous visit to Westport (Diary, June 17th).The first sign that this plan might not survive either was a religious vision at the foot of Croagh Patrick. Well, at the time, it looked like just a funny picture. Someone had attached a Mayo flag to the crosier on the statue of St Patrick, while his other hand as usual held up a shamrock.So I posted this on social media as the saint’s prediction of “Mayo by 3”. Then I set off up the mountain. And that was my plan’s other problem. I had climbed Croagh Patrick a few times over the years, but the most recent was 2012, when following Giovanni Trapattoni up the slopes (unlike him, I went all the way). Since then, there’s a new stepped path on the conical summit, where you used to have to clamber up the shale. But the works also seemed to have extended the mountain vertically, by another kilometre or so. Either that or I was getting old.But the time I made it back down to Murrisk, 3½ hours later with knee and hips creaking, the prospect of getting back to Westport for the start of the match was no longer feasible. There were no taxis, for one thing. So I watched the first half in Campbell’s pub, thinking a Kerry blitz might end the game as a contest early and simplify things. Instead, by half time, there were signs that St Patrick had been right in his confidence about Mayo’s prospects. Still, I wasn’t giving up on the 5.50pm train, yet. So I wondered out at the interval, and saw a taxi-van. Was it free? No. The driver was waiting for people still on the mountain and pointed me to the bus stop instead. But the bus timetable inspired no confidence. Then I had a mad idea. Maybe I could thumb a lift? The last time I did that routinely was the late 1980s, when the “Mayo curse” hadn’t been invented yet. Even so, as I flexed the long unused digit, it still seemed to work. A little self-consciously, I extended it in the direction of the first car that passed. Then the second. And lo! Within a minute of my hitchhiking comeback, the third car stopped.When the driver told me he was from Mullingar, but “50 years here”, I remembered that in my original hitchhiking career, Mullingar was the only place I ever got stuck overnight. Now a man from Mullingar (and his wife) not only gave me a lift to Westport, they left me to the door of the B&B. So with the second half in Croke Park barely begun, I had already retrieved my bag and relocated to a hotel nearby to watch the rest of the game.An hour later, St Patrick’s prophesy was going viral and I was setting up temporary residence in a quiet corner of the hotel, while the rest of the place, and Mayo in general, went mad.By the time I finally filed the colour piece, the last train out of Westport was in Leixlip. My new problem was where to stay for the night. Everywhere in Westport had been full before the game. They would be even fuller now.Sure enough, there was nothing available online and calls to B&Bs confirmed the worst. Then, knowing it was a stupid question, I asked the hotel reception if they had anything. “Well,” the young woman said, “there is the bridal suite.”At first, it seemed a sacrilegious idea. I imagined myself staying there, a blushing non-bride, and rejected it as too ridiculous. But later, after considering the alternatives, which included sleeping on a bench or propping up a bar counter until dawn, I went back to the receptionist and asked if the room was still available. It was, and now discounted to a mere €320.So I took the bridal suite (for better or worse), calculating that on the day Mayo finally won the All-Ireland, The Irish Times budget might stretch to such emergencies.Back in town, I watched the chaotic celebrations on Bridge Street, where an attempted cavalcade got stuck in traffic and some cars had to reverse out.Then I spent an hour in the bedlam of Matt Molloy’s pub. After that, I went back to the bridal suite where, physically and emotionally exhausted after an extraordinary day, I was just about able to carry myself across the threshold.