So, Cork or Donegal? Who do you shout for when you have a foot in each camp? Who do you least want to offend? Either way, you lose, writes MARY HANNIGAN

SO, THE GAA is a unifying force that brings folk together in peace and harmony and the like, and when all is done and dusted we shake hands and say, “sure, ye were the better team, ye deserved it”?

Good one. Try telling that to any families with divided county loyalties, not least in this Donegal v Cork tete-a-tete.

That’s been the difficulty through the years for all us mongrels – born in one country, growing up in another, one parent from somewhere else, the other from somewhere else entirely.

So you end up being nothing at all, really, or, at least, not being welcomed into any one tribe because you have a drop of blood from another. But still, you nail your colours to a single mast and brazen it out, and that’s when the trouble can start.

All’s fine until the championship gets going, no one gets too emotional during the league, and then relations can become so fractured the UN would regard the situation as too treacherous to send in peace-keepers.

The only time there’s any degree of unity among the non-Dubliners is when Dublin are involved, thus uniting them in a “we are all non-Dubliners today” kind of way. Worst of all, though, is when Dublin are actually playing one of their counties, they somehow seem quadruply up for it, aggressively so, 1992, perhaps, the most testing time of all.

The Donegal clan arrived in a convoy up the road – a Dublin road, mark you – horns beeping and flags waving, prompting curtains to twitch and neighbours to emerge armed with pickaxes. No, not completely true, but by the look on the one down the road, bedecked in her blue and navy, she was thinking about it.

It would be like waving a Spanish fishing flag in Killybegs.

Provocative.

“Well sure, hopefully ye’ll have a nice day out,” you kindly said to them, warning them not to feel too downhearted come full-time: “Ye were great to get there.”

And off they set off for Croke Park, rejecting the offer of a map to find the place, and you followed them once the beeping subsided.

Top deck of the Cusack, so far back Donegal looked like Subbuteo figures when they emerged, but Dublin still looked like giants. “Oh then fare thee well sweet Donegal,” you hummed to yourself, fearing for your loved ones, one of whom was on the pitch. And then Donegal won the All-Ireland final and you sensed your next few months would be hellish. You sensed right.

Some of the clan didn’t return home for weeks. One of them bid farewell to everyone at the Gresham when he set off for Donegal, and then got the coach driver to drop him off at Conway’s around the corner. It was the mother of all celebrations.

It was a while before the Dublin wing set foot in the county again, but you’d have imagined the final whistle had just blown. “Sure, ye were great to get there,” was the gist, as was the back-slapping and winking and ho, ho-ing.

What hadn’t helped, in truth, was the decision to post to a Donegal cousin a blue and navy lighter bought in a Dublin shop the week before the final, emblazoned with ‘Dublin: All-Ireland Champions 1992’.

It seemed funny at the time.

A week later? A yellow one, reading “Donegal: All-Ireland Champions 1992,” dropped in the letterbox, the temptation to use it on the photo by then hanging in the kitchen of Anthony Molloy raising Sam Maguire immense.

Twenty years on they’re still reminding you about it, but they were on a brand new roll again this summer, making efforts to take pretty holiday snaps of, say, the Arranmore ferry and Mount Errigal, tricky. You know yourself, you excitedly load your photos on to your laptop, hoping for one gem out of the 962 you took, but 97 per cent of them had a Donegal flag obscuring the view.

There was even a flag planted out the back window one morning, like they’d invaded and occupied the place overnight.

They’re up for it.

And now they play Cork. The other half of the clan. Nightmare.

The Cork crew, though, are a different kettle of fishy, the road to Dublin worn out by them over the years, some of them claiming they’ve spent more time in Croke Park than in their living rooms.

Hurling is mainly their brew, but if that doesn’t work out in any given year they’ll take the football as a consolation prize – so long as they mangle Kerry along the way.

Or Dublin. They do like beating Dublin, very much.

So, Cork or Donegal? Who do you shout for? Who do you least want to offend? Either way, you lose, really. Because the winners could play Dublin, making the All-Ireland final the longest of longest days. Mayo? Well, one of grannies came from there, but she left us about half a century ago, so you’d hope she’d be easy about it all. Whatever happens, though, the dread is there’ll be more horn-hooting and consoling “ye were great to get there” stuff come full-time, and it’ll go on for another 20 years.

No lighters will be sent this year, though, to Cork, Donegal or Mayo. Lesson learnt. Right then, let’s get it over with.