All you read is love: The books about Mayo’s All-Ireland win that just had to be written

“It’s a release,” says Liam Horan. He not talking about his upcoming book on Mayo football, or at least not specifically about it just in this instance. No, he’s talking about the whole thing, the essential mist of star-crossed magic that has fallen over the county since July 26th. And the fact there is no sign of it lifting any time soon.

“I was on community radio in Castlebar the other day,” Horan continues, “and they quoted a local councillor who said it was like an emotional time bomb. It definitely was. That release was felt in all sorts of ways in the conversations you were having in pubs and the people you were meeting at homecomings. The liberation of it. I mean, it’s language you wouldn’t necessarily associate with sport.”