Generation Game – Frank McNally on the pain of rural migrants whose children play for Dublin

Back when I was a young fella, newly arrived in 1980s Dublin, I briefly had a girlfriend by the name of Bernie Ryan. She was from Tipperary, as Ryans tend to be. And among many other talents, she was a brilliant footballer.

Fast and skilful, she more than held her own in soccer kick-arounds with the lads. But in Gaelic, I think, she played county. Despite her diminutive size, she was fearless in the tackle. I recall visiting her sickbed once as she recovered from a broken collar bone.

Our relationship was a fleeting one. She soon traded me in for a Bruce Springsteen lookalike from Mayo, called Noel, who was also part of our circle then. He was an accountant and clearly a better prospect, because Bernie went on to marry him. But I took rejection well, apart from aiming a few sneaky kicks at him during seven-a-sides in Bushy Park.

Noel had a very exotic surname for a Mayo man: Basquel. Unusual as it was, however, his family were doing their best to propagate it. There were 14 of them, if I remember correctly, including about 10 brothers, all Mayo GAA fanatics.

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My theory was that their ancestors had come over with General Humbert in the Year of the French and then missed the boat home, possibly because they were in a pub in Westport, arguing about football.

They had since gone native, and not just in Mayo. Last I knew they were also developing a small colony in south Dublin.

Anyway, in our many beer-fuelled conversations of the mid-1980s, Gaelic football was a common obsession. As always, Mayo were on the verge of a breakthrough then. But my own county, Monaghan, was Ulster’s coming team.

In the heady summer of 1985, both threatened to break the Kerry-Dublin duopoly that had dominated the previous decade.

Our lads won the National League that year, for the first time ever, then added the Ulster title. Barry McGuigan from Clones, meanwhile, became a world boxing champion.

So to be a young Monaghan exile in Dublin at the time was to walk with a swagger, even as the dire prospect of meeting the greatest Kerry team of all time in the All-Ireland semi-final loomed.

Mayo faced the Dubs in the other semi and were genuinely confident. One night beforehand in the pub, a member of the Basquel clan explained the pathology of Mayo football, vis-a-vis the big two.

They never feared Dublin, he said, whereas the mere sight of Kerry jerseys was enough to foredoom them. Amid the ongoing tragedy of Mayo football ever since, that pattern seems to have hold true.

In the event, both the 1985 semi-finals ended in draws, before the big powers regathered their forces and won the replays.

Secretly relieved that we hadn’t been hammered in the first game, despite my outward expressions of utter confidence, I had to compose myself in work the Monday afterwards and affect disappointment.

As colleagues offered congratulations on the shock draw, I shook my head in disgust and said: “We’ll never be that bad again.” In fact, it would be a long time until we were that good. But in the decades afterwards, there was always a consolation in thinking about Mayo supporters, whose sufferings were invariably greater than ours.

I lost touch with Bernie and the Basquels a few years later. Then life happened, the way it does. Soon another generation somehow rose behind us, taking centre stage.

A few years ago, I noticed a rising new name in Dublin GAA circles: Basquel. There were two promising young brothers: Ryan (what else?) and Colm, both playing under-age for the county and threatening to break through at senior.

Sure enough, eventually, it came to pass. And last week, when Mayo had their hopes crushed yet again, it was one Colm Basquel, son of Noel and Bernie, who did most damage, with two goals in a Man of the Match performance.

I’m sure parental pride trumps mere county loyalty in such circumstances. If I were Colm’s dad, I’d have been cheering for him, primarily. Still, watching from a distance, it was like Mayo’s emigration drain in microcosm.

It’s a small consolation of advanced age that my own children are unlikely to line out for Dublin, even though that’s where they live. Despite – or because of – early exposure to many Monaghan GAA games, they have reached adulthood with no desire to watch football, never mind play it.

In Croke Park this Saturday, alas, I will be alone in my joy or pain. But if the worst happens and the Dubs hammer us, at least I won’t have to blame myself afterwards for contributing to their already extravagant reserves of talent.