What readers are saying about I Can See It Still
Writing I Can See It Still has involved going back over decades of Mayo football from a vantage point none of us had before 2026.
There were matches I remembered clearly, others I had partly forgotten, trips, people, places and incidents that came back to me once I started looking. And, inevitably, there were days I might happily have left where they were.
Declan O’Connor, Ballinrobe: A beautiful and brilliant book. Smiles, laughs, tears and heartache, but most of all, pride in our county. Liam Horan’s devotion to Mayo GAA shines brighter than any lighthouse. Well done, Liam.
Padraig Healy, Aughrim, Co. Wicklow: Cracking book. I highly recommend it to anyone with not just an interest in Mayo 2026, but perhaps more interestingly everything that went before.
Media reviews:
Jonathan Mullin, former RTÉ GAA Correspondent, picked up on something that means a lot to me: namely, that the book is about much more than what happened during the matches.
He said: ‘Horan carries the reader through the highs and lows of Mayo football with pace, humour and a sharp eye for detail. The people, places and small moments matter every bit as much as what happens on the field. Lively, original and beautifully observed.’
That reference to the people, places and small moments particularly pleased me. They are a large part of I Can See It Still. Following Mayo was never confined to the seventy minutes. It was who you travelled with, where you stopped on the way, who you bumped into, what you talked about afterwards, what you avoided talking about and all the other things that somehow attached themselves to the football.
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For Frank Roche, Irish Independent Gaelic Games Correspondent, it was the significance of 2026 that stood out: ‘2026 changed the way Mayo people looked back on the previous fifty years. Horan uses that new vantage point to revisit the triumphs, disappointments and near misses.’
The All-Ireland victory of 2026 didn’t erase what happened before it. The defeats are still defeats, the near misses remain near misses and all those journeys home still happened. But we can look at them differently now because, finally, we know where the road led. I was happy that Frank referenced that.
Seán Moran, Irish Times GAA Correspondent from 1994 to 2026, came at the book from another angle. He said: ‘I can say without ambiguity that the breadth of Liam Horan’s involvement in Mayo football is impressively and dauntingly admirable.’
Shane McGrath, Irish Daily Mail: ‘…a story well told about Mayo’s day of days, by a man uniquely placed to chronicle it….the ideal laureate after a final that transformed his county. He is one of the country’s most distinguised writers on Gaelic games.’
