You need Dublin to be strong without winning.
Dublin losing to Armagh 2002, Mayo 2012 and Donegal 2014 were some of the greatest days ever in Irish sport.
Thanks to the split season/zombie zone situation we now find ourselves in, the recent defeats to Galway 2024 and Meath 2025 may as well not have been played.
There was a humdinger of a County Semi Final in Derry last year between Newbridge and Magherafelt that threw in at 8.10pm live on RTE 2 .
Not for me they werenât
Mayo 2006 as well. 2021 to a lesser extent.
Sky Sports Spanish Football vibe about that. A perfect fixture to sip beer through a straw to with a slice of lime on the glass. With Tayto of course.
They were titanic days though. Days of Titans. The day Dublin went out of the championship was a ritual. You were drinking it out of a dirty boot that evening and night and that was that. Tomorrow was not scheduled.
My favourite nights of this genre were in order:
2002 Quinnâs, Faganâs, the Big Tree and the Bohemian. Nobody really minded losing to Armagh because Armagh were sound.
2005 ended in Flanneryâs and Cafe Moda in Rathmines. It properly ended with me evacuating the contents of my stomach at 5:30am in the Dundrum front garden of a female who is now a journalist active on Twitter. She had just told me her parents were in the house.
2006 ended in Flanneryâs and then Coppers where I saw Mark Vaughan shortly before he met with a fist.
1998 - I have memories of watching USA V Iran through a haze in the Tolka House and then falling asleep on the lawn of the Sunnybank.
1997 - my first ever time in the Gravediggers.
2000 was the angriest Dublin Defeat Day. There was real bad ju-ju in the air that night. Christy Burkeâs son got stabbed by some head the ball and nearly died.
2009 was the worst. I had two pints in the Gravediggers, nodded awkwardly at Ken Early and Eoin McDevitt as they shuffled out awkwardly after only having one. Then I went home. This day was the crescendo climax of the Chaos Years. There were to be at least two more proper Chaos Years performances before the 2011 All-Ireland but this was the piéce de resistance.
The Dublin performance against Armagh on Sunday was the first of what youâd term a Chaos Years performance since that day.
The defeat against Mayo in 2021 had to happen eventually.
The 2022 defeat to Kerry was almost a victory hewn out of a defeat.
There was no defeat in 2023.
The defeat to Galway in 2024 was the end.
The defeat to Meath in 2025 was an aberration.
The defeat to Armagh was the new normal. Dublin are just not very good and over the coming years will find lots of different ways to lose in embarrassing fashion.
Dublin Defeat Day (DDD) has only happened once outside of Dublin in my time and that was 2001. This year will be the second.
Why the fuck do you still follow gaa so closely or are you only on the wind up?
That 09 trouncing by Tyrone was runreal. Also the earwig match v Kerry. Everyone thought Dublin were on the brink. Paul Casey and mark Vaughan seemed to opposite to the missing piece in the jigsaw
Was that not Kerry that trounced them
08 so
I felt the same as you from 96 to 2010. It honestly felt like Dublin would never win another all ireland after the Tyrone and Kerry hammerings in 2008 and 2009.
However beating Kerry in 2011 in the manner we did changed it for me. It was such a high i knew Dublin losing would never bother me as much again and it hasnât. Maybe iâm just getting older
The 2013 semi-final against Kerry was perhaps the last great day and possibly also the greatest of all great days.
You always want what you canât have. In the days of Dublinâs chaos you longed for an unlikely run to the All-Ireland.
At one point and one point only in those years between 1996 and 2010 years did it feel inevitable Dublin were going to be playing in an All-Ireland final and then Mayo immediately removed that inevitability and turned it on its head.
When Dublin started dominating you longed for a challenge.
The 2013 semi-final was possibly the sweetest spot of all. You werenât yet sated, and the feeling of inevitability was defeat and Kerry reasserting their dominance. Iâve rarely been as certain of anything but that Dermo would miss that left footed free. Then he nailed it and McAuley threw himself on a floating ball and Kevin McMenamin (itâll always be McMenamin even though his name is McManamon) curled a beauty straight into the top corner like he meant it because he did mean it even if he did not mean it and that was that.
The two greatest Dublin scores Iâve seen are Dermoâs two identical clinching points from out on the wing in the two semi-finals against Kerry, one with the right, one with the left, identical like theyâre in a mirror.
All our dreams were coming through for that ten year period. Ending the famine, ensuring it wasnât a one off, back to backs, dominance, last minute winners, the famous five, buzzing for the half dozen. Titanic struggles and replays with Mayo and Kerry. We didnât want these fuckers taking our title away.
Neither us nor the sport will see the likes of it again. Those memories will be cherished and canât be taken away. We had it all. What an era.
No one will ever nix the six in my lifetime so Iâll die happy
2017 was the pinnacle . How they came back to beat Mayo that day Iâll never know.
What year was the steps rule changed? I must have been away for that Congress.
Years upon years later youâd occasionally hear about DJâs transgressions but Hey!
I went from fully cheering for Dublin at the 2011 final to hating the cunts over the coming years. Despite all the nay saying about money etc the amount of classic narrow wins and draws in that era was absolutely unbelievable.
Alan brogan got a similar one in the rain agin Kerry . A cracker and a vital one . I think he may have been on the pitch a short while , maybe not .
Donie Vauaghan. Should never have to pay for a pint in Dublin again.
That final had it all, probably the high ceiling of Gaelic Football as we knew it