If you plan your summer around the Blessing of the Graves, you’re going to be gutted.
It’s the biggest event of the year in many places, it’s the highlight of the decade for some people too and, if anything, it’s just another excuse for a group session of tea-drinking but, in Monaghan, it’s going to have to play second fiddle this year and there’s no two ways about it.
The scheduled Blessing of the Graves in Scotshouse for August 12 has been postponed owing to the Farney county’s continued rise in the football world.
On Sunday, two Monaghan teams descend on Croke Park vying for respective places in the All-Ireland senior and minor football finals.
For the first time in 30 years, the same county who’ve never won a senior All-Ireland at any level and who’ve had just three All-Stars in the last three decades will contest a semi-final and there will be two sets of proud county men trying to take them another step further.
Sunday
Kerry v Monaghan
All-Ireland MFC semi-final
1.30pm, TG4
Monaghan v Tyrone
All-Ireland SFC semi-final
3.30pm, RTÉ/Sky Sports
Alongside Dublin, Monaghan are the only outfit who didn’t lose in the Super 8 series as they put their quarter-final woes behind them and hit the pitch at the perfect time.
Now, they face Tyrone again – the same side they already ousted in the Ulster quarter-final in their own backyard of Healy Park – and they’re playing better and with more cohesion than they ever have done.
The county has risen together with Malachy O’Rourke hailing the sizeable contingent that followed them to Waterford for their first qualifier game when other fans would’ve turned away from their teams after losing to Fermanagh like they did.
But this group have gone further than they ever have and it’s a mark of the scale of what they’re doing that even the Blessing of the Graves have been put off until next week.
With the men and under-17s both taking part in the historic clashes at Croke Park, Ireland’s fourth smallest county will be at a standstill this weekend.
This is major now – as if we ever needed any more proof than the sensible decision to move the date of the Blessing of the Graves.
https://twitter.com/christopherbo84/status/1026468648012132354
Monaghan have 5,000 men between ages 20 and 34 and created nine world class players https://t.co/DZxk1Jzfbk
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) July 15, 2018
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