BBC’s Amazing Sport Stories podcast investigates The Curse of County Mayo

The new season of the BBC World Service’s Amazing Sport Stories travels to the West Coast of Ireland to investigate if failure in sport can be caused by a curse.

This is what The Curse of County Mayo is trying to find out. As in US baseball, for the Boston Red Sox, there was the so called “Curse of the Bambino”, this is the story of Ireland’s equivalent.

Why hasn’t Mayo’s Gaelic football team won the All-Ireland championship since 1951? Some believe it’s because of the Mayo Curse.

It all started on the 23 September 1951 when County Mayo’s Gaelic football team had just won the sport’s most prestigious competition: The All-Ireland championship.

While celebrating on their way home, they passed a funeral and, according to the story, apparently drunk on success, forgot to stop and pay their respects.

Legend has it that the priest presiding over the funeral set a curse on the team as punishment: “As long as you all shall live, County Mayo will never win another All-Ireland!”

That’s what seemed to happen as they continued to lose finals, which many believe, is because of the curse.

As the original line up grows smaller year after year, and with the next championship around the corner, could an answer finally be in sight?

Irish American sports reporter Dave McKenna investigates whether it really is a curse that’s behind County Mayo’s Gaelic football failures.

Dave says: “The Curse of County Mayo has been the story of legend for years in the sporting world. The BBC World Service have set the task to investigate this tale, so I’ll bring listeners around the globe the chance to understand the history behind the mystery.”

The Curse of County Mayo is available on BBC Sounds and other major podcast platforms from today, Monday 27 November. The first episode will air on BBC World Service Radio from Saturday 2 December, and the remaining episodes on 9 December and 16 December.