Ballaghaderreen - what is the gig?

[Rossfan]

[and always do condisder myself having returned to Mayo (when driving from Dublin) when I come within a few kilometres East of Ballagh.

Seeing as you also think Dungannon is in south Down i take it you skipped the Geography classes 

[Lar Naparka]

Are you even reading the posts, Lar? I never said Ballagh had to switch to Roscommon. I said the only solutions are a dispensation that lets Roscommon members of the club play for their county if they so choose or moving the club entirely, which is obviously the nuclear option.

A solution is needed - to say people haven't offered up ones besides moving the club is as fat a lie as I've seen. If Mayo people - particularly those at the club - continue to be so hard-line as to ignore common sense and allow Roscommon people in a Roscommon town not play for their own county they'll pay for it with the club. The only direction that the demographics of the club is going is towards more and more Roscommon members and in time they may not even bother with keeping the club in Mayo if the Mayo members continue fuelling the resentment.

I can't say I read all posts on all topics at all times but I generally read yours.
I must say I find your posts to be generally well-balanced and insightful but what you are asking me to do here is a wee bit unreasonable.
Using conventional logic, its impossible to prove a negative. I cannot say you never did say that Ballagh had to switch to Roscommon but I'll accept your word for this.
But I can say that I don't recall you ever suggesting an alternative solution either. Maybe you would point out to me an instance of you proposing an alternative solution?

"A solution is needed - to say people haven't offered up ones besides moving the club is as fat a lie as I've seen."
That's all very well and good but since neither I nor anyone else here denied this, it's a bit irrelevant.
BTW, what you posted in #12 comes across to me as a threat or at least a dire prediction and hardly provides the basis for a democratic solution.

For instance, you did say:
"The idea of a separate club was tried but it didn't take hold and Mayo people should be thanking their lucky stars for that because if one became established Ballagh's Mayo heritage would be washed away in a generation."

For that statement to be credible, the pro-Rossies must be overwhelmingly in the majority in the area at present and those who wish to keep playing in Mayo must be reduced to using every trick in the trade to prevent a democratic process taking place.
Yet, I am now being told that the present club is still very much in the grip of the Mayo supporters even though its been four to five generations ago since the town was transferred to Roscommon.

I'd say that if a second club was formed, both of them would go belly up to the detriment of all concerned.

Why not allow the members to make their own decision without undue influence from any outside interests?

[Hardy]

"The fox always smells his own tail first," was a saying we had in Nathys

I'm intrigued. Was this part of the biology curriculum?

[Lar Naparka]

"The fox always smells his own tail first," was a saying we had in Nathys

I'm intrigued. Was this part of the biology curriculum?

No.

[Lar Naparka]

A commonsense approach would be good: allow club to continue to play in Mayo but allow Roscommon players to declare for Ros.

Good post, Turlough. I'm in complete agreement with you here.
Compromise of some sort is called for but you are one of the few Rossies that appear to even consider anything other than complete victory.
Sure, no one has spelt the message out in unambiguous terms but, equally, there has been little or no consideration shown for the rights of those who wish to continue the Mayo connection.

However Mayo and the Connacht Council have in the past prevented a second club from being formed - to be affiliated with Roscommon. A ladies GAA club affiliated to Roscommon was also ruthlessly treated.

I think it is important to note that the Connacht Council did the blocking. I think common sense prevailed here. There is no way such a sparsely-populated region could possibly support two separate clubs.
Now, if the motion had been to allow the pro-Rossie brigade to declare for their county, I think most Mayo people would accept it.
Quite possibly, some club members might not but I don't think most Mayo people are too pushed one way or the other.

Again, none of the Ballagh Rossies have tried to move the club.

That may well be true of the club members but it's not coming across here this year or any of the previous times when this controversy got its regular airing.

All we have asked is that our right to represent our native county be respected by the GAA and the Connacht Council in particular (who will do feck all). It gets a bit old when Mayo folk say Ballagh is a Mayo town. The Queen Elizabeth reference was, of course, an attempt at sarcasm. I've always found it a little ironic how some Mayo folk talk about Ballagh's former status in Mayo as if it was some kind of eternal verity, some immutable truth that the Rossies disrupted when it fact the county boundary that was changed in the late 1800s was a county boundary created by Queen Elizabeth in the first place and changed by a Mayoman - as you correctly state for cheaper water rates. It was an arbitrary boundary to begin with. In the real world of today, Ballaghaderreen is in Roscommon. As one of the major towns in a lowly populated county (with less than half the population of Mayo), there's something seriously wrong when Mayo with one of the biggest player picks in Ireland get to take all the players in Ballaghaderreen.

Then maybe the voice of reason has been drowned by the incessant whine coming from some on 'your' side of the border.
It seems to me, and I imagine every other Mayo supporter on this board, that an outburst of griping and growling starts up every year around this time and that hyperbole replaces reason.
A man would really have to hold his nose and wade deep through the ullage to find a scrap or two of common sense.
I'm glad you are, as always, an exception to the general consensus.
Would you not go a step further and agree that it is really a matter for the club members to come up with an internal solution that satisfies both sides to the greatest extent possible?
I mean the town of Ballagh was transferred around four or five generations ago. Surely, it's reasonable to expect that the demographics would have changed sufficiently in the interim to have a controlling Rossie interest in the club by now.

Yet it seems that a strong and uncompromising Mayo element remains firmly in control. This baffles me-maybe there is more to the story than we are being told.

Whatever the reason, or reasons, the future of the club depends on actions being taken by the club members. Surely, if the population is as overwhelmingly pro-Rossie as we are led to believe, there should be enough voting members amongst them to force the club to seek the dispensation you mention.

[ross4life]

I will always consider myself and always do condisder myself having returned to Mayo (when driving from Dublin) when I come within a few kilometres East of Ballagh.

I'd say when you go into a Irish pub in England you probably consider it Mayo also.

Sean Kilbride is a decent man.
I went to Nathys with him so I can vouch for that.
However, with the greatest respect, Sean Kilbride isn’t posting here and even if he was, you can’t expect me or anybody else to keep tabs on anything that was written about him or by him last summer.
Besides, what you’ve quoted is an expression of Sean Kilbride’s philosophy, which doesn’t necessarily imply that you share his views.
Maybe you could point out to me any instance in this thread or any other on the same subject where any of the “Ballagh is our, give it back at once” brigade admitted that the pro-Mayo faction has any rights at all.
(Anything written since I first brought the matter up in an earlier reply to Turlough doesn’t count.)
I think it would be an instance of democracy in action to allow the club members have the ultimate say.
What’s wrong with that?
BTW, in regard to the name calling and general slagging, if you care to consider the matter in greater detail you will find that about 90% of this puerile behaviour is coming from your side of the border.
I don’t mind it at all because it means the hoor on the other side is rattled but I use it as a means of payback in similar coin.
“The fox always smells his own tail first,” was a saying we had in Nathys and I think it’s an apt one to use here.

The piece i posted was article written in the build up to the Connacht final last summer seeing that you were on the thread & went to Nathys imagined it would have caught your eye.

The views held by Sean Kilbride are the same by the majority of rossies. Ballaghaderreen is Co Roscommon that's not going to change & Ballaghaderreen players playing for Mayo isn't going to change either but like Turlough said a compromise should be reached that allows the people of Ballagh to choose which county they can play for & seeing that you have already agreed with Turlough i think we can move on in that regard.


P.S I wouldn't expect sheepophiles comments to come from a guy the same age as Sean Kilbride young at heart perhaps?

[Jinxy]

"The fox always smells his own tail first," was a saying we had in Nathys

I'm intrigued. Was this part of the biology curriculum?

No.

This is Mayo we're talking about Hardy.
It was probably part of the maths curriculum.

[Hardy]

Teacher: You, Young Naparka - state Pythagoras's Theorem.
Lar: The thistles in me father's field are that big, I think they'll have to be felled, not cut.
Teacher: Good man.

[Jinxy]

 
The rest of the lads used to bully him for being a nerd.

[Lar Naparka]

Teacher: You, Young Naparka - state Pythagoras's Theorem.
Lar: The thistles in me father's field are that big, I think they'll have to be felled, not cut.
Teacher: Good man.

I thought you wouldn't let my last answer go without comment.
But its a case you see of only giving information away on a strictly need- to- know basis.
I don't know what's going to come down the N5 next so I'm giving nothing away if I can help it.
Besides, I'm trying to help my good pal, Jinxy, to keep the thread going 'til we make it a hundred pager at the very least .
So, starting to talk (write?) sense at an early stage makes no sense at all  if you follow me.

[Hardy]

I do indeed and would expect nothing less than creative codology.

[Jinxy]

You're way better craic than the Tyrone posters Lar.
They take everything so seriously.

[Farrandeelin]

Can Lar and the Meath bucks turn this into a 100 pager on their own?

[Jinxy]

Mind your own business! 

[Syferus]

Can Lar and the Meath bucks turn this into a 100 pager on their own?

BURST THEM, FARRANDEELIN!

FOR CONNACHT!

FOR QUEEN!

MEABH!