FINE GAEL’S group of mountain goats were very pleased with themselves when they made the summit of Croagh Patrick.

But a view of Clew Bay wasn’t the first thing that greeted them. Instead, they saw a green and gold flag fluttering in the wind and knew they had been beaten to the top by their colleague from Donegal, Joe McHugh.

In a cheeky early morning raid, McHugh, in the company of Meath’s Damian English, climbed the reek and reinstated the Donegal flag which had been knocked down by an unknown hand in Enda’s Mayo territory.

But on the first day back in Leinster House on Tuesday, TD John O’Mahoney, former Mayo manager and All-Ireland medal winner with Galway, passed McHugh and shouted: “That flag has been removed!” A case of high-altitude handbags.