An Irishwoman's Diary

"This is real politics," a Galway newsagent tells me as he argues passionately with a local election candidate - not about waste management, or local services, or the state of the traffic, but about Keane's return to the Irish soccer team.

His view of the primacy of sport over politics is hardly uncommon in these parts, so it's not surprising that one of the county's recently commissioned public statues features a sporting hero, rather than a politician - and a four-legged one at that: the monument to Bobbyjo in the east Galway village of Mountbellew.

The good people of Mountbellew had been racking their brains for about four years, trying to think how they were going to mark the millennium, when the racehorse came to their rescue and won the Grand National at Aintree in 1999.

Back west in Salthill, the journalist Jack Mahon was one of thousands having an Aintree flutter on the local horse, which had won the Irish Grand National the year before. After the roars of delight were over, he wandered down to collect his winnings at John Mulholland's bookies.

Skipping the queue, Mahon advised the proprietor to have a photograph taken of the throng of happy punters - why, he could use it for publicity purposes later on. "He wasn't in the best mood," Mahon recalls. "It wasn't a good day for him - and he also thought I was having him on."

A few days afterwards, Mulholland, a Fine Gael councillor, regretted the decision, having "realised he could never recreate history". That little bit of history is one of many moments recorded by Mahon in his book The Bobbyjo Story, published this week at €9.99. He was asked to write it by Sean Burke, brother of the late horse's owner, Bobby, two years ago when they met at the first meeting of the season in Ballinrobe, Co Mayo. Mahon, a prolific writer with a veritable stable of imprints to his name, interviewed several members of the family as part of his research, and also talked to the Carberrys, who were such an integral part of the horse's success. When Paul Carberry crossed the finishing line at Fairyhouse in 1998 astride the horse which his father had trained, it was the first time that a father and son had scored such a victory at an Irish Grand National in 123 years.

The Burkes from Mullaghmore, near Moylough and Mountbellew, were a typical farming family, "close to the horse and the soil", Mahon writes. As was typical of the time, the land could not support everybody. Bobby Burke, who bought six horses from a Castlegar contractor businessman and former hurler, Liam Mulryan, over a drink in Tonery's Bar in Bohermore, is one of a family of nine and has been in London since 1967. His eldest brother, Sean, ran a bar and restaurant in Kingsbury, north London, having emigrated in 1960.

Brothers Tom, Bobby, Paddy and Jarlath followed, and pursued careers in pubs and contracting. A sister, Maura, emigrated to the US and became a judge in Alabama. Two sisters, Katherine and the late Ann, stayed in Co Galway, while the youngest, Eugene, became the "man on the land" and the "friendly face" behind the Hawthorn Bar in Mountbellew.

It was Eugene who took on Bobbyjo when his older brother struck that deal over a pint in Bohermore. The horse was named after Bobby and his wife, Joe, at his mother's suggestion. He remembers the day of the "christening" - his own birthday, July 8th, 1995, when he handed the horse over to Tommy Carberry to train. From "day one", as Mahon writes, he was promising, coming second three times in early races. His first win was the Tom Dreaper Memorial Chase in "heavy going" at Fairyhouse, Co Meath, and he then took the Porterstown Chase there in November, 1997.

It was ideal preparation for the Grand National at the same venue the following April, and Mahon quotes Brian O'Connor of The Irish Times, who had reported on the "derogatory descriptions which came thick and fast before the race", such as "a glorified upside-down handicap, just a decent point-to-point". The spectacular finish, with just half-a-length between Bobbyjo and Papillon, defied all the critics. Paul Carberry was, O'Connor wrote, "at the centre of a raucously happy scrum in the winner's enclosure afterwards". Stranger than fiction, a father and son trainer/jockey combination had been involved with both horses - the Carberrys with Bobbyjo, and Ted and Ruby Walsh with Papillon.

The following year, all of the Burke family travelled over to Aintree, followed by coachloads of customers from their many pubs. Even Maura, the distinguished judge, flew in from Alabama. Mahon notes that she decided to "kill two birds with the one shot" by running in the London Marathon a short time before Aintree. Back at home, Mrs Mary Ellen Burke was "praying from the family home". The odds changed from 25-1 to 10-1 before the race began. "The small wee bets - and the big ones too - from all those betting shops in Galway were having their effect," Mahon says.

When they brought the Grand National Trophy back to Mountbellew, it was like bringing home the Sam Maguire Cup. Sadly, the horse is now buried where he was reared in Mullaghmore, having had to be put down when he developed complications with a leg injury in 2001. Jack Mahon says that neither he nor the Burkes would suggest that Bobbyjo was "an Arkle, a Sea Biscuit or a Shergar" - "but he was a top Grand National horse, who ended a 24-year famine for Irish winners in Aintree". And who nearly broke the bookies from Moycullen to Moylough.