In Reply to: Re: Old saying (in Irish) posted by Bill on October 20, 2005 at 00:30:52:

Mayo God help us is dur to the fact that Mayo suffered more than any other county during the famine & again one of the most deprived counties since, also our footballing failures has kept the saying alive.

It origionates from English dinner parties in the mid-19'th century when they would have someone read from the newspaper, the only thing that they ever appeared to hear of Ireland was, Mayo and famine/hunger, both seemed to entertwined in nearly every report of the day in the London newspapers