Enduring memories and 'imposter syndrome' - The GAA Social meets Mayo star Carney

Jack Carney has two enduring memories from the whirlwind of celebrations that followed Mayo's return to the promised land after 75 years.

Both are linked to places that helped shape him.

He will never forget seeing the crowd of people that waited at Kilmeena - his home club - to see their heroes bring Sam Maguire onto their patch.

Kilmeena was the last stop on the All-Ireland champions' homecoming parade, as Andy Moran's side were roared

Running behind schedule, when the bus finally arrived, Carney was struck by the numbers that stuck around to see one of their own.

"To see the amount of people that waited there just to see the team, to see Sam Maguire returning to such a small club, no-one ever thought it was possible," Carney tells Thomas Niblock and Oisin McConville on the GAA Social.

"To finally bring it back there to my local people was something I'll never forget."

The other memory Carney hopes proves ineradicable is the powerful feeling that accompanied carrying Sam onto Achill Island alongside team-mates Donnacha McHugh and Diarmuid O'Connor.

Carney has deep family roots on the island. His father and grandfather hail from there and both were present as Carney, McHugh and O'Connor - soundtracked by more than 100 bagpipers, including his father - carried the famous trophy across the Michael Davitt Bridge and onto the island.

Given his connection to Achill, the power and significance of the moment was not lost on Carney.

"According to my father and grandfather, that's never happened before [bringing Sam Maguire on to the island], so I recognised the cultural importance of it - and you could feel it," says Carney.

"That originally wasn't on the calendar as a club until further down the line. The island empties when summer is over. People return to where they're from originally, Dublin or Galway or wherever, and I really wanted to get the trophy down there while the island was vibrant and alive.

"My grandfather was the sergeant on Achill Island. My father grew up in the barracks and the GAA pitch was the back garden. They kind of claim me as half one of their own."

Carney, whose two-point score launched Mayo's All-Ireland final comeback against Kerry, added: "With no Achill player on the team, it was really important that both myself and Donnacha - both our fathers are from there - to get down there and show our appreciation for what they've done for us and our families.

"And Diarmuid O'Connor just has a sense of knowing when something will be good and when to be there.

"He came down with us and I'm delighted he was there because someone who didn't really understand the weight of it all - when we were crossing the bridge, he could say he could just feel it, he said, 'this is something different here'."

Carney's journey to clutching Sam on a sun-kissed evening on Achill Island bears repeating.

He made his inter-county debut in 2021, and while he didn't make the squad for that year's All-Ireland final loss to Tyrone, he delivered a man-of-the-match display in another Croke Park decider a few months later to help Kilmeena win the All-Ireland Junior Club title.

It wasn't long before Carney became a Mayo regular. He featured under James Horan and Kevin McStay but found a new level thanks to Andy Moran's leadership and became a key cog in the run to the All-Ireland title.

He has also benefited from the new rules, establishing himself as a deadly two-point marksman in the green and red. He nailed two of them in the All-Ireland final win over Kerry amid an all-action display that helped his county end a 75-year wait.

While acquiring a knack for raising orange flags hasn't hurt his cause, it was Carney's all-round contributions that sealed a Footballer of the Year nomination alongside team-mate Ryan O'Donoghue and Kerry star David Clifford.

"There's a bit of imposter syndrome to be mentioned alongside those two boys," admits Carney.

"I genuinely suffer from feeling a little less worthy than Ryan and David because of what they do on the big stage time after time.

"But I'm very glad the work I've done in the last 17 or 18 years has come to fruition. Not for me, but for my family and my club, the first player from Kilmeena to be nominated as an All-Star."

Whether or not Carney follows Moran and Lee Keegan to become Mayo's third footballer of the year, the 25-year-old will be instrumental in the county's All-Ireland defence in 2027.

"After the All-Stars [on Friday], we go to Barbados the next morning for 10 days," he said.

"The timing of that is great for the group because when you come back there's a bookmark in the 2026 season and we move on from there.

"That's the time our mindset will shift to 2027. We're a young group, we're ambitious. The celebrations can't go on forever."