Ballaghaderreen - what is the gig?

[RedandGreenSniper]

If there's so many Rossies in Ballagh surely it would be easy to propose a vote through the local GAA club that players playing for Ballaghaderreen have the option of playing for either county?

[Syferus]

If there's so many Rossies in Ballagh surely it would be easy to propose a vote through the local GAA club that players playing for Ballaghaderreen have the option of playing for either county?

Plenty of members, even with all the defections to other Roscommon clubs by Ballagh natives, but the board is pretty much entirely die-hard Mayo, there's lots of stories of the board refusing to let kids transfer to Western Gaels so they could play for Roscommon.

[mayogodhelpus@gmail.com]

If there's so many Rossies in Ballagh surely it would be easy to propose a vote through the local GAA club that players playing for Ballaghaderreen have the option of playing for either county?

Plenty of members, even with all the defections to other Roscommon clubs by Ballagh natives, but the board is pretty much entirely die-hard Mayo, there's lots of stories of the board refusing to let kids transfer to Western Gaels so they could play for Roscommon.

[Syferus]

If there's so many Rossies in Ballagh surely it would be easy to propose a vote through the local GAA club that players playing for Ballaghaderreen have the option of playing for either county?

Plenty of members, even with all the defections to other Roscommon clubs by Ballagh natives, but the board is pretty much entirely die-hard Mayo, there's lots of stories of the board refusing to let kids transfer to Western Gaels so they could play for Roscommon.

Care to disprove them? How many years have you lived in the area? 

[Farrandeelin]

The board? What board? Could it not be brought up at AGM?

[RedandGreenSniper]

If there's so many Rossies in Ballagh surely it would be easy to propose a vote through the local GAA club that players playing for Ballaghaderreen have the option of playing for either county?

Plenty of members, even with all the defections to other Roscommon clubs by Ballagh natives, but the board is pretty much entirely die-hard Mayo, there's lots of stories of the board refusing to let kids transfer to Western Gaels so they could play for Roscommon.

For all the talk of the GAA being a democracy in name only, if the majority of a club's members wish to change something, it can and does be done. Not overly familiar with the politics of the GAA club in Ballagh' but from my experience of being there to play football and knowing people there, the Mayo/Ros loyalties appear to be split pretty much halfway. Is this not true?

[Farrandeelin]

So what have we learnt from this wonderful informative thread?

(1) Loughglynn,Gorthaganny are two separate villages in Co Roscommon.
(2) The Earley's grew up in Roscommon kicked their first football here, wore their county colours with pride.
(3) Forget the past this is the present for the record Ballaghaderreen is officially a Roscommon town (many miles inside our border actually) it was when i and others here was born forever will be Long after we're dead & gone.
(4) The sheepophiles stuff is rather tiresome at this stage, lay of the rhubarb crumble guys.

Re point 3. It's not THAT far inside Roscommon.

[Hardy]

If there's so many Rossies in Ballagh surely it would be easy to propose a vote through the local GAA club that players playing for Ballaghaderreen have the option of playing for either county?

Plenty of members, even with all the defections to other Roscommon clubs by Ballagh natives, but the board is pretty much entirely die-hard Mayo, there's lots of stories of the board refusing to let kids transfer to Western Gaels so they could play for Roscommon.

For all the talk of the GAA being a democracy in name only, if the majority of a club's members wish to change something, it can and does be done. Not overly familiar with the politics of the GAA club in Ballagh' but from my experience of being there to play football and knowing people there, the Mayo/Ros loyalties appear to be split pretty much halfway. Is this not true?

Worth ploughing through this thread for this gem.

[RedandGreenSniper]

If there's so many Rossies in Ballagh surely it would be easy to propose a vote through the local GAA club that players playing for Ballaghaderreen have the option of playing for either county?

Plenty of members, even with all the defections to other Roscommon clubs by Ballagh natives, but the board is pretty much entirely die-hard Mayo, there's lots of stories of the board refusing to let kids transfer to Western Gaels so they could play for Roscommon.

For all the talk of the GAA being a democracy in name only, if the majority of a club's members wish to change something, it can and does be done. Not overly familiar with the politics of the GAA club in Ballagh' but from my experience of being there to play football and knowing people there, the Mayo/Ros loyalties appear to be split pretty much halfway. Is this not true?

Worth ploughing through this thread for this gem.

Glad I made it worth your while.

[Lar Naparka]

MGHU how about sticking to the topic of a thread for once? the OP wanted clarity, he got it Ballaghaderreen is in Co Roscommon but people from the town can only play for Mayo under ancient GAA laws.

I for one am sticking to the topic.
Ballaghadereen is indeed in County Roscommon for local government purposes. So what?
I keep repeating that sport should be above politics. In doing this I am confident that 99.99% of GAA people will agree with me.
You say that under "ancient GAA laws" people from the town can only play for Mayo.
I'm truly at a loss to understand what your problem is with this.
Is the club or indeed the Mayo CB doing anything illegal in sticking to the terms of 'GAA laws?"
(I think you will agree, after mature consideration of course, that the relevant ancient laws in question are political and not GAA ones.)

[Turlough O Carolan]

Lar, good to see the Mayo trait of being wide off the mark is alive and kicking.

I respect your superior expertise in this field.

No one is suggesting the Ballaghaderreen GAA club transfer back to Roscommon.

I beg to differ. You and you alone are the only one who hasn't demanded this, never mind just suggest it.
What else could you possibly have in mind? With emigration and unemployment being what they are, it must be hard to keep one such club going, never mind two.

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

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 am genuinely curious here.
What were the reasons given for not letting a second club be formed? This time last year when this subject got its customary airing on the board, we were told that all other counties voted against the Rossie's proposals.
We also got the predictable "We wuz robbed" crap from some of your fellow-travellers but no one came up with a credible reason for the Connacht Council refusing the application.

Simple answer there. Sligo and Roscommon voted to allow the St John's club (which was really just going to start off as an underage club). Mayo and Galway voted against it. Leitrim had the deciding vote. With Johno manager at the time, they voted against it. That's democracy Connacht Council style. Some Juntas around the world can only watch and admire.

The reality is the town is in Roscommon, has been for over 100 years, yet we are still being asked to respect the county border created by Queen Elizabeth and hav to listen to nonsense about the Brits moving the town. 

What the hell???
Tell me, Turlough, which of us is making a big deal out of the border?
You are the ones who claim that since Ballagh finds itself on the Roscommon side of "the county border created by Queen Elizabeth and hav to listen to nonsense about the Brits moving the town," this club must cease playing in Mayo and affiliate with the Rossie CB whether the members like it or not.

That's the Roscommon concept of democracy, is it?

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

[Syferus]

The board? What board? Could it not be brought up at AGM?

Well I'm using it as a euphemism for the brain trust, the chairman, the treasurer, the people with political sway in the club, they're overwhelmingly die-hard Mayo.

The worst part of all this is that it's Ballagh GAA that's suffering the most - if it even offered dual 'citizenship' it'd probably have Seanie McDermott and Derek Moran in its ranks and there's plenty of other people who went to school in the town like Cathal Cregg and who knows who they'd have choosen to play for if county allegiance wasn't an issue. The whole are is awash with club talent - in 2008 Ballagh, Castelerea and Eastern Harps won the Mayo, Roscommon and Sligo championships, all three being local clubs. If Ballagh were able to win one title with what they have already, how many more could they have won with its true pick?

[ross4life]

So what have we learnt from this wonderful informative thread?

(1) Loughglynn,Gorthaganny are two separate villages in Co Roscommon.
(2) The Earley's grew up in Roscommon kicked their first football here, wore their county colours with pride.
(3) Forget the past this is the present for the record Ballaghaderreen is officially a Roscommon town (many miles inside our border actually) it was when i and others here was born forever will be Long after we're dead & gone.
(4) The sheepophiles stuff is rather tiresome at this stage, lay of the rhubarb crumble guys.

Re point 3. It's not THAT far inside Roscommon.

Yes it is.

MGHU how about sticking to the topic of a thread for once? the OP wanted clarity, he got it Ballaghaderreen is in Co Roscommon but people from the town can only play for Mayo under ancient GAA laws.

I for one am sticking to the topic.
Ballaghadereen is indeed in County Roscommon for local government purposes. So what?
I keep repeating that sport should be above politics. In doing this I am confident that 99.99% of GAA people will agree with me.
You say that under "ancient GAA laws" people from the town can only play for Mayo.
I'm truly at a loss to understand what your problem is with this.
Is the club or indeed the Mayo CB doing anything illegal in sticking to the terms of 'GAA laws?"
(I think you will agree, after mature consideration of course, that the relevant ancient laws in question are political and not GAA ones.)

After consideration i'm sure you discovered the sheepophiles comments weren't very mature?

This was posted up before the Connacht final last July you probably missed like the main points of this thread.

Seán Kilbride

"I was very honoured to be thought of as good enough to play for Mayo and I was fully committed to them at every level from minor to under-21 to junior to senior. I had long since abandoned any desire to play for Roscommon because it just never came into the reckoning because you knew it was never going to be on. But there was definitely part of my mind that was conscious of the fact that my identity was very much Roscommon."

In time, he got the chance to flesh out that identity. Life pushes you and prods you in directions you can't always control. After his father died, Kilbride took over the family farm in Ballintubber. Although he combined it with playing for Mayo, after a while he was dropped from the panel for missing league games. He was friends with Dermot Earley through his time being stationed in the Curragh, however, and Earley asked him would he like to join the Roscommon panel.

"Part of me was worried because it would have been seen as a controversial move at the time. But there was another part of me that was thinking that it would have fulfilled my father's wishes in many ways. And I also felt that I would be playing for my own county finally. Of course, the first game was against Mayo."

Kilbride went on to have a hugely enjoyable Indian summer with his adopted (readopted?) county. He picked up Connacht medals in 1978 and '79 but missed the run to the 1980 All-Ireland final with a broken leg. He tried a comeback in '81 but his time was up. He threw himself into Roscommon GAA and trained teams at every level. Tomorrow, his son Senan will line out at full forward and another son, Ian, will be on the bench. His Ballagh days are long ago now.

"I don't think the Ballaghaderreen club will ever change or be brought in to play in the Roscommon championship. But I do believe that players growing up should have a choice whether they want to play with either Roscommon or Mayo. If you grow up in a household with a Mayo sense of identity, then okay, you ought to be able to play for that county. But for those like myself who grew up in a Roscommon household with a Roscommon sense of identity, they should be allowed to choose, especially since it is in their own county.

"I think it would be good for Ballaghaderreen too. I think you would have more players getting county trials and playing at county level. Roscommon has less than half the Mayo population so inevitably there would be more players getting trials and call-ups. As well as that it would be the right thing to do. Because there is a resentment in Roscommon that the second biggest town in the county is lost to it in GAA terms, even though the town is administered by Roscommon and in every way is a Roscommon town."

The bits in bold might help you to understand?

[mayogodhelpus@gmail.com]

even though the town is administered by Roscommon and in every way is a Roscommon town. [/i]

The bits in bold might help you to understand?

What part of the town being under the remit of Castlebar or Roscommon town as far as local government is concerned not mattering in the least, do you not understand? The town may unfortunatly be now in the administrative county of Roscommon, but it has been and will always remain a part of the GAA county of Mayo. The Roscommon argument is ridiculous when you think about the situation of Places like Tipperary North & South Riding, the Balkenised Dublin, Ards, Castlereagh, Galway City Council etc. This is the G.A.A. not local government. 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.

Maigh Eó go brách.

[Lar Naparka]

So what have we learnt from this wonderful informative thread?

(1) Loughglynn,Gorthaganny are two separate villages in Co Roscommon.
(2) The Earley's grew up in Roscommon kicked their first football here, wore their county colours with pride.
(3) Forget the past this is the present for the record Ballaghaderreen is officially a Roscommon town (many miles inside our border actually) it was when i and others here was born forever will be Long after we're dead & gone.
(4) The sheepophiles stuff is rather tiresome at this stage, lay of the rhubarb crumble guys.

Re point 3. It's not THAT far inside Roscommon.

Yes it is.

MGHU how about sticking to the topic of a thread for once? the OP wanted clarity, he got it Ballaghaderreen is in Co Roscommon but people from the town can only play for Mayo under ancient GAA laws.

I for one am sticking to the topic.
Ballaghadereen is indeed in County Roscommon for local government purposes. So what?
I keep repeating that sport should be above politics. In doing this I am confident that 99.99% of GAA people will agree with me.
You say that under "ancient GAA laws" people from the town can only play for Mayo.
I'm truly at a loss to understand what your problem is with this.
Is the club or indeed the Mayo CB doing anything illegal in sticking to the terms of 'GAA laws?"
(I think you will agree, after mature consideration of course, that the relevant ancient laws in question are political and not GAA ones.)

After consideration i'm sure you discovered the sheepophiles comments weren't very mature?

This was posted up before the Connacht final last July you probably missed like the main points of this thread.

Seán Kilbride

"I was very honoured to be thought of as good enough to play for Mayo and I was fully committed to them at every level from minor to under-21 to junior to senior. I had long since abandoned any desire to play for Roscommon because it just never came into the reckoning because you knew it was never going to be on. But there was definitely part of my mind that was conscious of the fact that my identity was very much Roscommon."

In time, he got the chance to flesh out that identity. Life pushes you and prods you in directions you can't always control. After his father died, Kilbride took over the family farm in Ballintubber. Although he combined it with playing for Mayo, after a while he was dropped from the panel for missing league games. He was friends with Dermot Earley through his time being stationed in the Curragh, however, and Earley asked him would he like to join the Roscommon panel.

"Part of me was worried because it would have been seen as a controversial move at the time. But there was another part of me that was thinking that it would have fulfilled my father's wishes in many ways. And I also felt that I would be playing for my own county finally. Of course, the first game was against Mayo."

Kilbride went on to have a hugely enjoyable Indian summer with his adopted (readopted?) county. He picked up Connacht medals in 1978 and '79 but missed the run to the 1980 All-Ireland final with a broken leg. He tried a comeback in '81 but his time was up. He threw himself into Roscommon GAA and trained teams at every level. Tomorrow, his son Senan will line out at full forward and another son, Ian, will be on the bench. His Ballagh days are long ago now.

"I don't think the Ballaghaderreen club will ever change or be brought in to play in the Roscommon championship. But I do believe that players growing up should have a choice whether they want to play with either Roscommon or Mayo. If you grow up in a household with a Mayo sense of identity, then okay, you ought to be able to play for that county. But for those like myself who grew up in a Roscommon household with a Roscommon sense of identity, they should be allowed to choose, especially since it is in their own county.

"I think it would be good for Ballaghaderreen too. I think you would have more players getting county trials and playing at county level. Roscommon has less than half the Mayo population so inevitably there would be more players getting trials and call-ups. As well as that it would be the right thing to do. Because there is a resentment in Roscommon that the second biggest town in the county is lost to it in GAA terms, even though the town is administered by Roscommon and in every way is a Roscommon town."

The bits in bold might help you to understand?

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.