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In the Wesht, we are all just stage Irishmen in an 18th century play. The "een" is used as a term of endearment such as "let me give a bowleen of milk to my poor pisceen" or sarcasm "a little maneen came around today asking for my voteen..." Or indeed Colm O Rourkeen.

Ros teams have won two major All-Irelands in the last 7 years. Hughes reffed both fairly. Hope we have him when we make that senior final.

No doubt. We've heard that before alright.

My guess is that it will be touted for business conferences and outdoor concerts and every sort of activity that could yield a few bob.

What? In Ballyhaunis?

First the business folks looking for the conference will arrive in Ballyhaunis and if in Summer will be greeted with the smell of offal from the Halal factory. Then they will have to find Bekan which is a different place entirely. On asking for directions some local scratching their head will say: you must mean Bacon. Head out that way.

If Connacht Council can market this, then fair play.

In fairness to Connacht Council they stuck a pin on a map and found the dead center of Connacht , a backwater called Bacon. Could a student in Dublin get a train there? No. Enough said.

Congrats to Mayo and Andy Moran. Tough luck to Sligo who had the winning of this. Costello on a few moves and Kelly on one occasion took the wrong option when a simple pass would have yielded a point. All the hop balls due to collapsed scrums were a disaster for Sligo because the ref might as well have handed the ball to Barry Moran such was his dominance there. The point that was not and another was dubious too. Indeed the town end umpire thought about giving Mayo even another. Mayo's backs are impressive and very comfortable under high ball and indeed Sligo kept them fed but not enough cutting edge in the forwards. That was very evident in league final but backs will keep them competitive against most teams. Despite all the criticism, the Hyde was in nice shape this weekend. The only criticism from a bunch of Mayomen around me was all the spiders in the stand, which must have brought them good luck.

Congrats to our minors and hard luck to Mayo. Relieved with the win today because Mayo dominated possession in second half. That they could not score from play was as much down to some great defending by Ros as it was to poor shooting by Mayo. We started very brightly and could have been out of sight after 10 mins. We became ragged in second half, looked in trouble and it took a brilliant point from Murtagh to lift us again. Mayo were winning most things around the middle at that stage. We became predictable sending ball after ball up the right wing, mostly mopped up by Mayo backs. Like the senior game, it was a nervy affair and the football on show won't have worried Tipp or Kerry. But good to win while playing poorly and many of these players can do much better. The victory was a great antidote to what was on show yesterday.

Im not a Wum and was a pretty seious footballer aome time ago  i have played in a connacht final if you really need to know so i think i know football and supporters fairly well.

I think we have found Sligo Mick

Not true. Sligoman2 is a long time member of board and was on the Sligo team that recorded one of the biggest shocks in Connacht football. Still makes me sick to think about it!

Jaysus with all the weeping and wailing and gnashing, there won't be a Mayoman with a tooth left by the time ye get to the Hyde. I thought ye had left the whingeing back in 1996. Roscommon and Sligo went to McHale Park in 2010 and there wasn't a word of complaint. You'd swear by some of the posts here that  McHale was near some historic downtown with a wonderful place to gather after the match, when most of us just walk back to our cars parked along with N5 - unless there's some ceol and craic to be found in one of those thatched cottages around Turlough house. At least in Roscommon town, there's always been a tradition of gathering in the historic town center. As for the complaints about the weather in Roscommon, well we can't all be like the sunny hotspots of places like Bohola and Aughamore and Toureen where the chemists can't keep the factor 90 in stock, such is the demand. That said I recall lots of fine Connacht finals in the Hyde - indeed the 1991 replay was a much better day than the first game in Castlebar where Derek Duggan had to kick a 60 yard free into the teeth of a very strong wind. Some corrections about all the money that was ploughed into the Hyde. When the Hyde was designated as the provincial ground in the early 90s, both Mayo and Galway kicked up such a fuss, with scathing articles written in the Western People, that the kibosh was put on this and Ros only got a fraction of the funds that they should have got to make a top class stadium. I'll be the first to admit that the upgrade was uninspiring. While the concreted terrace steps might have been cutting edge in 1993, compared to the grassy embankment we used to stand on, it's clear now that the architectural style owes more to the nearby cattle mart than a modern football stadium. Maybe we thought this would make the Mayo girls feel more at home. Mooo! Ah, just joking lads. No doubt, the old ground will be hopping for the Connacht final and I look forward to two great days in the Hyde. Any thoughts on the game at all?

What is the capacity of Markievicz park anyway?

Here are the figures for all 5 Connacht grounds quoted from that report late last year:

Pearse Stadium Galway 33,000 down to 26,197
Mc Hale Park Castlebar 36,764 down to 28,187
Pairc Sean Mac Diarmada Carrick on Shannon 15,000 down to 9,331
Markievicz Park Sligo 18,780 down to 13,801
Dr Hyde Park 33,612 down to 18,890

Now it's unclear which counties have rectified the issues raised and restored their capacities. Maybe we will be told this week. There are quotes from Roscommon officials from late last year saying that they could only afford to fix some of the issues raised in the report and would have to see if that would be sufficient to satisfy the Health and Safety crew.

Yes like this one from Roscommon County board secretary Brian Stenson in November.

"The plan is there to rectify the issues which have been highlighted in the Slattery report. We can get the capacity back up to 30,000 with proper efforts. It will take a few years to do all the work as the finance isn't there to do it in one shot but we can reach a capacity of 25,000 handily enough and that would accommodate most Connacht finals."

Didn't he also say ownership of Hyde has to be resolved first. That dispute has been going on since 2007 between county board, Ros Gaels, the Hyde Park Trustees and the committee which the GAA setup to resolve it and includes Mr. Prenty. Was that resolved as they said it would be this year or is that playing on in the background too?

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.

Good too see you are still about, Turlough. I was beginning to worry that you were not going to rise re-appear and join in the annual moanfest that you Rossies regale us with; without fail, the bleating and baaing begins in the run up to the championships.
For some people the rise of mayfly on the Moy heralds the arrival of summer, while for others it's call of the cuckoo or the spectacle of swallows skimming across the meadows.
But I'm of a more prosaic turn of mind. When the sheepophiles resume their clamouring to get back what they never had to begin with, I know championship time is just around the next bend.
Mind you, this year the moaning  has begun earlier than usual- must be that there's feck all else to worry the lot of ye.
I know that getting reason from a Rossie is like getting milk from a bull but in the cause of good fellowship and harmony between our peoples, I'm prepared to have another lash at pointing out the (GAA) facts of life to all who have eyes and are willing to listen.
There was, and is, no compelling reason for the Ballagh GAA club to change anything it does. Either they are right to stay out of politics or they are not.
I suggest they are.
However, if the membership of this club decided to change its present policies in any way, I feel they would be quite entitled to do so.

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

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

On the flip side, Roscommon County Council has ploughed huge grants into the redevelopment of the Ballagh club's pitch.

Would you be happy if you lived in Mayo but were told you could not represent Mayo, nor could your sons, or your grandsons? That's the way Roscommon people in Ballaghaderreen are treated.

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.  Indeed, I am surprised Michael Ring is not asking us to apologise to the Royals for disrespecting their county border. The red above the green, how are ya.

Always amazed the amount of nonsense that gets posted from the plains of the yews when the subject of Ballagh crops up.

Amazing how the Rossies are always called blow-ins. Funny enough, some of the most famous Ballagh men who have represented Mayo were from outside the town. Sean Flanagan was from Aughamore. John O'Mahoney is from Kilmovee. The following Ballagh players who represented Mayo (no choice if you are from Ballagh unless you move clubs) were and are Roscommon men - Sean Kilbride, Noel Durkin, Andy Moran and Pierce Hanley. Sean Kilbride would later move clubs and play with his home county. His sons represent Roscommon today.

The transfer of Ballaghaderreen across county boundaries was also not some dastardly British act. The Dillons were a nationalist family (Mayogodhelpus re those Brits you kicked out in Ballagh - James Dillon btw went on to lead Fine Gael and continued to keep his address as County Mayo). County boundaries themselves are, however, a British construct. Mayo benefited greatly from boundary changes too getting Ballina. Roscommon lost Athlone.

Ballagh in the early days did transfer to Roscommon for awhile and only moved back to Mayo due to some argument lost in the sands of time.


As for the Earley family - yes they moved from Mayo, but Dermot grew up in Roscommon and went to school in Ballaghaderreen. His father, the great Peader Earley, also founded the Michael Glaveys club in 1956. Most counties have benefited in some way from families moving in - Mayo have done very well themselves. Who knows: Roscommon might have been a hurling superpower had Eddie Keher's family not moved to Kilkenny. His cousin did win an All-Ireland junior hurling medal with Ros in the 60s.

Today Roscommon natives in Ballaghaderreen still cannot represent their native county - unless they move their home town. As someone who grew up there, that still galls me. I will say the zeal in which they have prevented Ros players from playing with their native county has often gone beyond the beyonds. There was a lot of skullduggery in preventing the second club - St John's - from going ahead and it was voted down by the Connacht Council in the early 90s when Mayo, Galway and Leitrim voted against it. I wonder why these counties felt they had the right to prevent Roscommon people playing with their native county - who were not at the time doing anything to hinder the local club, but just setting up a second club.

I recall when the girls of the town set up a women's football team that was affiliated with Roscommon, because it so happened there was never a ladies team in the town. The old football field by the convent was owned by the town - not the GAA - and when the girls went to play in this not-in-use pitch (full of rushes and the like), some grown GAA men locked them out for fear a Roscommon gaa club would get a foothold. Mighty men altogether to prevent young girls from playing. Twasn't that long ago that happened either.

One thing they can't stop is the huge support for Ros in the town - some of the best Ros supporters are Ballagh men and women.

Refreshing to see the Mayo supporters looking on the bright side. I wonder have Mayo swapped the House of Pain for http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FrXWiIg8QM

It was  good piece but would have benefited from a bit more research. Sean Flanagan was from Aughamore in Mayo. Johno is from Kilmovee in Mayo. John's house in Ballaghaderreen is about 5 miles inside the Roscommon border, not the last house inside the Mayo part of the parish.  Such rubbish. And the new Roscommon club did not just get off the ground. Certain people were instrumental in making sure it never got off the ground by having Mayo, Leitrim (Johno was manager at the time) and Galway vote against it when it went to a Connacht Council vote.

Now, now Moysider, how did that cost ye the final? Ros were down to 14 men for all the second half, Mayo for the last 10 mins. Lohan was surrounded by Mayo men when he struck the winning goal. It was a self inflicted error by Mayo that led to it. John Newton was wrongly sent off thanks to Gabriel Irwins playacting in 93 and there wasn't a word about it. The order of the GAA cosmos has already balanced itself out.