Thankfully, Ed Sheeran is elsewhere for the day and so we can be confident that Mayo-Galway will proceed at the time agreed in Hastings MacHale Park on Sunday afternoon.
It's the last of the 'Old Firm' provincial rivalries to still have relevance, what with Cork's aggressive embrace of mediocrity post 2010 and Dublin leaving Meath for dust in the past decade.
While there's been a fair degree of needle in the Mayo-Galway relationship in last few years, the footballing heyday of the rivalry was unquestionably the late 90s, when Connacht football rose from the ashes and games out west finally got the nation's attention.
Precursor - grim times in the west
Before the '95 Connacht final, this writer has a vague memory of one Mayo supporter contacting Sunday Sport wondering whether it'd be better to lose it (good luck to anyone going back to verify that this wasn't imagined).
All-Ireland semi-final day had become a relentlessly humbling experience for football folk from the west and Connacht were due to meet Ulster that year. Things could get ugly.
For the guts of two decades, Connacht teams only ever reached All-Ireland finals when they met the Ulster champions in the semis - and vice versa. The calculus changed in the early 90s when the Nordie teams quite rudely and abruptly started winning All-Irelands every year. Connacht, meanwhile, only got worse.
Galway football had been in one of its occasional slumbers since the late 80s, the team badly underperforming against its less well resourced neighbours, the county at large appearing not to care. Historically, the Galway GAA public has never been slow to decide that one or other of their senior teams are at nothing and planning their Sundays accordingly. When they drew with Leitrim in Carrick in 1994, Galway flags in the crowd were rarer than tricolours at the Ballymena 12th of July parade.
Sean Óg de Paor had been on the Galway championship team since '91 and was grateful to finally get a win in 1994 - against London.
Mayo had been in rag order for a few years, emerging as the least worst team in a couple of abysmal Connacht championships in 1992 and 1993, the former only memorable for its subsequent use on the BBC's Question of Sport 'What happened next?' segment after Enon Gavin pulled down the crossbar in the second half.
The latter title was followed by an unmerciful slaughter at the hands of Cork in the semi-final, a defeat so scarring it appeared to kill the interest in the county for a couple of years afterwards. There was a paltry Mayo crowd for the 1994 Connacht final loss to Leitrim. An unthinkable phenomenon from the current remove.
Apathy reigned supreme. Mayo's jovial perm-haired goalscorer from '89, Anthony Finnerty, was one of those to walk away, lost, as he informed the Mayo News podcast a while back, to the world of avant garde street theatre, as you do.
"I was in the Macnas parade here (in Galway city) and the Connacht final was on. It was all to do with hay, we were saving hay, we had cocks of hay going down Shop Street.
"And at the same time, Galway were hammering Mayo down in Tuam. And people were saying "Finnerty, y-y-you should be in Tuam!!" And I said "But I have a field of hay to save!"
Liam McHale had also opted out after the '94 Connacht final, deciding, understandably, that basketball offered the best hope for silverware. He was gone from the scene in '95.
"We were in the doldrums. Before John Maughan came in, we weren't doing much," McHale recalled to RTÉ Sport this week.
"I had retired around 94/95. I said to the lads, I'm 30 now, I've enough done. You're a very selfish individual as a sportsman. If I had any inclination that we were going to compete for an All-Ireland, I wouldn't have went.
"I decided at that stage in 94/95 that we were going no place. My basketball team (Ballina) were still one of the best teams in the country so I said I'll concentrate on that and see can I win a couple of national titles with the boys before I get too old."
For Galway, the bigger hump that year was getting over Leitrim in the Connacht semi-final, the first live televised game in the west. RTÉ had decided to expand their live championship coverage beyond the semi-finals and finals and a few provincial games were plucked out for selection.
As in the year before, Leitrim, now the home of the Connacht champions, was in the grip of GAA fever and the packed stands in Carrick were almost entirely devoid of Galway folk. Niall Finnegan's late winning point was greeted with a horrified hushed silence, punctuated by isolated roars from the pitch direction, reminiscent of when an eastern European team used to score in Lansdowne Road.
"We kind of stole that one really," says De Paor. "Leitrim were a top team at the time. We just hung in there, hung in there. And in the last five minutes, we got three points and snatched victory from the jaws of defeat.
"Leitrim were a bit shell-shocked. They had a right good team. My guess is if they had qualified for the Connacht final, in light of how we dealt with Mayo, they'd have been favourites going in. It was a great feeling to beat them."
Ireland was treated to a Mediterranean summer in 1995 and Tuam in late July was baking hot.
Galway, suddenly liberated after the win in Carrick, left their early-90s slump firmly in the rear-view mirror and ran riot, the likes of Finnegan, Tommy Wilson and the veteran Val Daly popping points at their leisure.
Ray Dempsey, Mayo's official designated goalscorer at the time, lamped one in off the post with the away crowd already filing out the gate.
"It meant a lot. It was our first Connacht title in eight years... It was at home in Tuam and the day went as well as it possibly could," recalls De Paor. "It was one of those games where you knew you were going to win with seven or eight minutes to go. Which is unusual really in a provincial final. I think Mayo got a late goal to put some respectability onto the scoreline but we were pretty much on top for the entire game."
Galway football's return to Croke Park for the first time in eight years represented a moral victory of sorts. Moral victories are usually the preserve of smaller, less aristocratic footballing cultures than Galway. But expectations had plummeted to such an extent from the early 90s that Galway's highly competitive showing against Tyrone was greeted with garlands.
Bosco McDermott's side led 0-08 to 1-03 at the break and should have been further ahead, Canavan slapping home a goal, which de Paor dived to slap away only after the ball had crossed over the threshold. Galway faded slightly in the second half and Tyrone heaved themselves over the line by three points.
"Peter Canavan got a lucky goal - and you can write 'lucky' down as well, he might be reading it," De Paor says. "We possibly could have won that."
1996
Connacht's horizons had broadened after the '95 semi-final and Galway, in particular, were buoyant, suddenly eyeing up an All-Ireland tilt in the near future.
Out of sight, Mayo were busily re-energising. After a few chaotic years, they wisely appointed an army officer as manager to put some order on things. John Maughan, best known for interrupting the milking schedule of Clare's bovine herd a few years earlier, was placed in charge of his own county, with whom he'd won a Connacht title as a player in 1985.
1994 and 1995 may have been wasted years from the perspective of the Mayo senior team but their U21s hinted at a better future, reaching successive All-Ireland deciders. The always bullish Maughan would build a team around these bright young things, while a few disenchanted old stagers were coaxed back, McHale among them.
"John Maughan came in. He actually rang me from the Lebanon," says McHale. "And he said 'I want to meet you when I'm home, I'm back in two weeks.'
"He said 'I'm taking over. We've a good young group coming through. Martin Carney's U21s had lost a two All-Irelands to Cork and Kerry, the James Nallons, Kenneth Mortimers, the Ciaran McDonalds, the David Bradys, the Maurice Sheridans, the John Caseys.
"He said 'I want you back. Dermot Flanagan is coming back. We're going to take eight or nine from the U21 group.' He said, 'we'll be winning Connacht titles and competing for All-Irelands before you're gone.'
"I said that's no problem, I'd come back and play. But we were straight with each other, because me and John were teammates for a couple of years before he blew out his knee. 'You have to understand, I want to play basketball,' I said. He said, that's no problem, we can work around that."
After briefly forgetting itself the year before, the Irish summer was back in its normal mood. A drenched Castlebar was the backdrop to the 1996 provincial decider, though the weather wasn't so inclement as to prompt Maughan to dispense with the shorts.
Mayo's youngsters exploded into life, John Casey lashing home a goal to give them an early 1-03 to 0-01 lead. Galway rallied, Fergal O'Neill belting home a goal and they had nudged ahead early in the second half. On the day, however, the hosts had the happy knack of pilfering a goal every time things began to look dicey.
When Finnegan reduced the gap to a point in the closing minutes, Dempsey popped up with his obligatory goal, finishing off after an intricate hand-passing move.
Palming the ball off to him was another returning veteran, Anthony Finnerty, having forsaken the street parades for one last tilt with Mayo, and now back in the starting XV, much to his own amusement.
"I got brought back into the panel and I ended up playing the following year, which I thought was very funny," Finnerty told the Mayo GAA podcast. "And we beat Galway. Bosco McDermott was talking about All-Irelands at the time, they had done so well with a young team. So that was special for me. To end up with my last game in Connacht, beating Galway, was very, very sweet."
1997
"It's not often that the main focus of the day falls on the Connacht championship but yesterday's rare top billing turned out to be thoroughly justified," wrote Sean Moran in his report after the 1997 first round game in Tuam.
The previous year, further strides had been made, even if any notion of progress for Mayo was obliterated by the ultimate heartache.
Mayo, on a day when James Nallen scored a great galloping goal, stunned Kerry in the semi-final. It was the first time a Connacht team had beaten either Munster or Leinster opposition in the championship since 1973. What occurred in the final probably need not be gone over again.
For the May '97 meeting in Tuam, the media was preoccupied with Mayo's jinx in Galway football's 'spiritual home'. They hadn't won there since 1951, a record which held during the Tribesmen's dismal stretch during the Charlton era. They'd beaten Mayo there in 1990 - the day after Schillachi eliminated Ireland - and had scraped draws in '89 and '92.
Both teams had improved considerably since then, soon-to-be superstar Michael Donnellan being handed his championship debut. The quality of the game was lauded in the national media, critics marveling at how far the province had come over the previous three or four years.
Mayo got off to a rapid start, shooting into a 1-04 to 0-00 lead, PJ Loftus booting home the goal. The hosts responded magnificently - in what was then not called the second quarter - levelling the game by the break.
Before Pádraic Joyce arrived to split the free-taking duties, Niall Finnegan carried the bulk of the scoring load, registering 0-09 altogether. He curled over a fine score from play to push Galway two ahead early in the second half.
Mayo's greater solidity and strength told from there, McHale stroking over a couple of points, while McDonald, absent from the '96 run, came off the bench to clip on 0-02 from play. Maurice Sheridan's coolness and efficiency on placed balls was critical.
Galway goalkeeper Martin McNamara shipped heavy criticism after the defeat. A short kick-out strategy was fairly outré in 1997, all the more so if it didn't quite come off.
While Mayo held off Galway that day, McHale knew their rivals' day was coming soon.
"We knew well they were coming. We beat them in '96 and '97, we knew that wasn't going to last. It was such a fine line. If we didn't get our defence right...
"They were getting older and stronger and more mature and they were able to deal with it better. They had a very clever midfielder in Kevin Walsh. Most people in Connacht knew Galway were coming.
Having laid the Tuam ghost to rest, Mayo proceeded to a second successive All-Ireland final but they never played as well again. They accounted for Leitrim in a dreary game in Castlebar, on the same day Mike Tyson took a chunk out of Evander Holyfield's ear, Gerry Flanagan finishing the day having thrown more digs than Tyson. They stumbled past Sligo in the Connacht final and laboured against surprise packages Offaly in a dismal semi-final.
They were tentatively given the nod as favourites for the final - possibly for the last time until 2021 - but this was primarily on the strength of their '96 form. The drab decider was only memorable for Maurice Fitzgerald's display.
1998
By the summer of '98, Connacht football's standing as the poor relation was an increasingly distant memory. Mayo's quest for an All-Ireland title was already tugging at the heartstrings of otherwise disinterested neutrals. It was well understood before the Castlebar first round game in May '98 that the winners were likely destined for an All-Ireland final.
Galway made a big move in the off-season, hiring John O'Mahony, who'd led Mayo to the '89 All-Ireland final, before being abruptly fired in 1991, and then, even more spectacularly, guided Leitrim to an emotional provincial title in '94.
A few more of the star-studded St Jarlath's crop of '94 came on stream, including Padraic Joyce and John Divilly. It was the intentions of another Jarlath - absent in 97 through injury - that were pre-occupying people in the lead-up to the game.
"Ja had gone off to play rugby with Connacht," says De Paor. "I remember that two or three of us - and this was literally two weeks before we played Mayo in Castlebar - went down to his house. We had been sent on a mission by John O'Mahony. I don't know if it made any difference, I know there were a few angles working on him trying to get him back."
Fallon, in his Laochra Gael tribute programme, said Connacht Rugby's offer of a part-time contract - as opposed to a full-one - made his mind for him and he returned to the Galway set-up shortly before the Mayo game in Castlebar.
"He came back on board two weeks before championship. Everyone was delighted to see him back. Because as well as being a super player, he was very much a squad player. He had as much time for the guy who was No. 30 on the panel as he had for No. 1."
With the stakes massively high, it was another tense and rip-roaring contest. The first half, in particular, was a thrill-ride. McNamara erred again, a loose pass teeing up Mayo's opening goal, lashed home by McDonald. The Galway goalkeeper redeemed himself with an excellent save soon after and his superb shot-stopping would become a consistent motif through that summer.
Galway began to get flowing as the half wore on, Derek Savage chipping home a delightful goal to establish a three-point lead close to half-time. Ciaran McDonald responded immediately, firing home his second of the game, Ger Canning on commentary, yelping out "What a match!"
The second half was a cagier affair, the decisive moment perhaps coming when McDonald's bid for a hat-trick crashed off the crossbar, bouncing down just outside the line. With Fallon bulleting over a crucial point and Finnegan clipping over frees, Galway held firm to claim a massive victory.
"The final whistle in '98 in Castlebar, certainly for Galway, was my best feeling ever - and that includes All-Ireland finals," says De Paor.
"They had played the final the previous two years and they were still on the up, it wasn't as if they were on the decline or anything like that.
"It was a real cracker. Mayo will probably say differently, they'll probably say the following year, but that was possibly the height of the rivalry. It was electric.
"I'd be friendly enough with Maurice Sheridan and he was very gracious after the game. Go on and win it now, he said. And he wasn't talking about the Connacht title."
1999
Connacht was home to Sam Maguire again - for the first time since Sean Lemass was Taoiseach and Jules Rimet last resided in Wembley Stadium.
Mayo, still stinging from their own close shaves, had to sit and watch on television as Galway swept all before them in the All-Ireland series - having survived a violent speed wobble against a typically dogged and competitive Roscommon side.
Naturally, there was a degree of triumphalist taunting in the aftermath. Second Captains Ciaran Murphy detailed on The42.ie many years ago how a few Milltown locals marked the border with a white line, beside which the message 'SAM STOPS HERE' was scrawled.
By then the hype and interest was such that dear old Tuam Stadium, with it's retro 1940s cow-shed of a main stand, struggled to accommodate the crowds pouring in.
In the week prior to the game, the Western Health Board killed the mood slightly by announcing that the stadium was not fit for purpose. The female toilets under the main stand were deemed to be in a "totally unsanitary condition" and, worse again, they were now dealing with a rat infestation.
This wasn't ideal, especially since President Mary McAleese was due to attend the game. The Irish Independent disclosed breathlessly that the toilets housing said 'rat infestation' were "adjacent to where President McAleese will be sitting." The Connacht Council earned a reprieve for the ground with the promise of more portable toilets.
In the end, too many people showed up and a hard-hitting inquest followed on the Sunday Game, with furious supporters ringing in, recounting how they couldn't get in despite holding tickets.
"There was people on every vantage point," recalls De Paor. "I don't know if you know the old toilets in Tuam Stadium, there were people standing on the roof. And the roof could have f****n' collapsed at any second."
The game had the nation's attention. Mayo, like Galway a year previously, had a year to sit stewing, contemplating revenge.
All went relatively well for the champions early on, they led by four at the end of a free-scoring first half.
However, they fell in a heap in the second half, failing to register a single point. In miserable wet conditions, Mayo reeled off eight points to claim a famous victory, sparking scenes of raucous celebration on the pitch afterwards. 1-14 to 1-10 was the score in the finish - the exact same scoreline by which Galway won the previous year's All-Ireland final.
Still recalling the pain of their Tuam hoodoo, Mayo supporters proceeded to take revenge on the pitch.
"I'll never forget leaving the pitch in '99 that day, people with tufts of grass dug out of the pitch," Mayo full-forward John Casey told the Mirror's Pat Nolan in 2019. "One particular man, he had this piece of grass in a bag and he showed it to me, 'This is the end, we're never going to be haunted in Tuam again'."
De Paor's most vivid memory of the aftermath is a jubilant John Maughan "in his straw hat" being chaired by the Mayo fans. Their All-Ireland won, the wing-back admits it was probably the case that a few too many Galway lads had paused to smell the flowers.
"When you win an All-Ireland... and this is what I admire most about Dublin when they were winning six in a row. How did they keep every single person so motivated? Because all it takes is one or two fellas to take their eye off the ball."
The heyday of the rivalry
While Galway and Mayo remains a blue riband fixture in the calendar, the '95-99 stands as its heyday. Soon the 'qualifiers' would come into our lives and rob the fixture of some of its urgency, a safety net being provided for the loser.
In some respects, the absence of the back-door is a regret for the players of the era. Such was their standing in the late 90s, its possible we could have had a Galway-Mayo All-Ireland final at the time.
"Those Galway-Mayo games, and I'd imagine the Galway lads would say the same, were the games you looked forward to every year," says McHale. "The build-up and the excitement was fantastic.
"We knew we were two of the best teams in the country. And whoever won had a great chance of winning the All-Ireland. If you were to pick the top three games of the year in those years (97-99) - and before that, Connacht football was kind of in the doldrums - the Mayo-Galway game, whether we won or lost, was either 1, 2 or 3."
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Watch Mayo v Galway live on RTÉ 2 and RTÉ Player (Throw-in, 4pm) and follow updates on RTÉ.ie and RTÉ News Now app. Live commentary on RTÉ Radio 1 Sunday Sport
