Ballaghaderreen - what is the gig?

[Jinxy]

Uh oh.

[spuds]

Sure no one has any interest in Connacht. Just look at Sligo a couple of years ago, beat Galway and Mayo and then threw the final. The place is an embarrassment.

[Jinxy]

You know you're in trouble when even Westmeath folk look down their nose at you.

[Syferus]

You know you're in trouble when even Westmeath folk look down their nose at you.

Well, at least we have more in common with ye.

[Lar Naparka]

Ye're all mad, Ballaghaderreen is a hole, ye should be fighting to get rid of it.

*sigh*

Don't I know only too well!
After all, I went to school in that bleedy place.
The place is such a kip that even the seagulls bring packed lunches with them when they  call around.
We've been trying to get their effiin' GAA club to take the hint for well over a hundred years now and they still refuse to leave.
I suppose in a way you can't blame the club but at times I do be wishing the whole sodden lot of them would clear off to Tyrone or somewhere like that where they could fight all day and no one would pass a blind bit of notice.

[Lar Naparka]

Unless everyone here are in their 50s,60s then maybe i am younger. Nothing bothering me everything well above board. How about yourself all ok? at your age you could be suffering from a mid life crisis.

As a contemporary of Sean Kilbride's, I think you should realise my midlife crisis is well and truly in the aimsir caite by now. In other words, my get up and go got up and went a long time ago.
By the way, nothing personal or derogatory meant in my reference to your age. I was just curious to learn more about your undoubted respect for Sean Kilbride.

Sean without doubt is a fine role model for younger Rossies but I'm intrigued that you should have  expected  me to set as much store by this article as you undoubtedly do.
Better still, you feel I should recall it in detail almost a year later.
I have a good deal of time for the guy but I stop short of hero worship!

Furthermore, you say that the majority of Rossies share his views and I say that you must be moving in very select circles if you believe that.
I have seldom come across a Roscommon supporter who would settle for less than a complete takeover of the club. I would imagine that every other Mayo poster would have the same thing to say.
I mentioned before that Turlough was the first Rossie on this board to suggest a sensible compromise. (In fairness to Sysferus, I admit that he had already done so but I had to dig deep down to find it.
His first sentence; "Our county council is kind enough to fund Ballagh GAA. How sweet of them," took my eye off the ball.)

As a matter of interest, who do you think should fund Ballagh GAA club if not the Roscommon county council?
The great majority of the club's members are Roscommon people; they pay their taxes and raise their kids and generally go about their business as denizens of County Roscommon.
The club is engaged in voluntary community work and meets the essential qualifications needed to secure grant aid from its county council. Ballagh is as much entitled to this aid as any other club in the county.

I feel most of you Rossies don't understand the nature of your problem.

For starters, Mayo took nothing from you and owes you sweet Fanny Adams.

Don't bother bleating and baaing for sympathy because you feel the nasty Connacht Council isn't being nice to you. (Maybe it isn't but that is beside the point.)
The Roscommon CB and all others who are not members of Ballagh GAA club can do nothing either.

It is up to the members to decide the status of their club either now or at any time in the future.
I certainly don't have a say in the matter of deciding where this club should play its games and  I suspect neither do you.
I am amazed that although five generations on from the time the county boundaries changed, the majority of Ballagh club members still want to maintain the link with Mayo.

They are not breaking any laws of God or the GAA by doing so and are entitled to carry on as they are until they should decide to do otherwise. Why a dispensation such as Kilbride mentions hasn't been sought or granted is a mystery to me.

I know a move by Roscommon CB to have the club transferred was blocked by the Connacht CB in 1962 and Turlough mentions the failed attempt in 19987 top have a second club established in the area but no one seems to have made any attempt to go about securing dispensations.

It's a Rossie problem and I wish you would all go and f**k figure out a solution to a mess of your own making.

I see you are still upset at being called nasty names by them horrid Mayo folks but you should be thankful we stop short of what I've heard you called. Like I said to you earlier, I don't think anyone in Mayo started this.
Tell you what..
You get on to Rossfan and tell him to behave himself and try making a bit of sense for a change.
If you do, I promise I won't call that pesky sheep shagger a sheepophile any more.
Howzat for an offer?

[Syferus]

It's entirely Ballagh's problem, whatever side you're on. The club hemorrhages players because of mentally deficient politics and small-mindedness. Are the Mayo people afraid that it'd mean players would pull a reverse Sean Kilbride and lead to Mayo people declaring for Roscommon if they come calling? It would also highlight how manufactured the divide in the town really is. There's no other reason not to let players chose themselves.

[ross4life]

Sean without doubt is a fine role model for younger Rossies but I'm intrigued that you should have  expected  me to set as much store by this article as you undoubtedly do.
Better still, you feel I should recall it in detail almost a year later.
I have a good deal of time for the guy but I stop short of hero worship!

I'm not a younger rossie & i doubt if many of the younger rossies know much about the man that got to finally play for his county. I don't think i have ever hero worshiped a player, are you missing the point again surely not?

Furthermore, you say that the majority of Rossies share his views and I say that you must be moving in very select circles if you believe that.

The majority of rossies feel players should have the choice to choose why is that hard to believe?

I mentioned before that Turlough was the first Rossie on this board to suggest a sensible compromise. (In fairness to Sysferus, I admit that he had already done so but I had to dig deep down to find it.
His first sentence; "Our county council is kind enough to fund Ballagh GAA. How sweet of them," took my eye off the ball.)

As a matter of interest, who do you think should fund Ballagh GAA club if not the Roscommon county council?

Who's that question for? Ballagh is a Mayo club that play in the Mayo championship maybe the Roscommon county council should fund more of your clubs.

I feel most of you Rossies don't understand the nature of your problem.

Pot,kettle,black.

For starters, Mayo took nothing from you and owes you sweet Fanny Adams.

We are funding one of your clubs if you funded one of our clubs you would expect something back.

I see you are still upset at being called nasty names by them horrid Mayo folks but you should be thankful we stop short of what I've heard you called. Like I said to you earlier, I don't think anyone in Mayo started this.

Why would you think i'm upset? i thought the whole fascination with sheep was tiresome same way i find the rhubarbs for sam talk tiresome.


Now Lar i could debate some more but your like the auld tipsy lad in the corner of the bar, better to nod than to argue.

[Lar Naparka]

It's entirely Ballagh's problem, whatever side you're on. The club hemorrhages players because of mentally deficient politics and small-mindedness. Are the Mayo people afraid that it'd mean players would pull a reverse Sean Kilbride and lead to Mayo people declaring for Roscommon if they come calling? It would also highlight how manufactured the divide in the town really is. There's no other reason not to let players chose themselves.

That's more or less what I've been saying all along. I've often wondered if there is some sort of a split in the town that goes back to the days of Home Rule or at least the War of Independence.
Maybe you or Turlough know something here.
I have heard that the Dillon family backed John Redmond after the HR party split over the Kitty O'Shea affair while the Fenians were pretty well-organised in Ballagh and in East Mayo generally.
I imagine the Fenians/ Nationalists would have been pro-Parnell while those who backed the landlord would have provided the opposition.
The split may not have been quite that clearcut and there may have been other factors involved but the town is certainly factionalised even to this day.
It's to the detriment of the area in general that there is such a big divide in the GAA club. But if there is ever going to be a coming together of interests, the desire for agreement must come from within the club.
If there is a split and it goes back to Parnell's day, the odds of it being settled any time soon appear to be remote. It's now over 112 years since the county boundaries changed and the row appears to be simmering away.
I don't think many Mayo people would really object to a dispensation allowing Ballagh natives declare for their county. As long as a majority of the membership want to maintain the link with Mayo, they should be allowed to do so but in the end it is going to be up to the club's own members to sort their problems out.

[Farrandeelin]

Lar, wouldn't every town and village be split if we were to take the Parnellite affair into account?

[AZOffaly]

Lads, sorry to butt in here, but can someone clarify for me. A player who plays for Ballaghadereen is NOT allowed to declare for Roscommon..is that the case?

There is a similar type scenario down here on the Kerry/Cork border in Ballydesmond (home club of Donnacha O'Connor amongst others). Ballydesmond, parrish is actually split by the border...most of is in Cork, but part of it is in Kerry. Now I'm not sure what arrangement the GAA have in place for this, but in a Munster Junior c/ship game a few years back there were players from Ballydesmond GAA club on opposing sides when Kerry played Cork! Niall Fleming, who plays with Ballydesmond and Duhallow in the Cork senior c/ship is from the Kerry side and declared for us..decent player too.
Now, given that similar situation, I cannot understand how a player with Ballaghadereen (which is in Roscommon after all) cannot be allowed to declare for Ros. Its a very strange scenario.

Actually if I remember that final correctly, the Ballydesmond man was marked by another Ballydesmond man?

Moneygall in Offaly was treacherously given to Tipperary by some Bishop back in the 1800s, and we took Riverstown into Offaly GAA as part of Carrig & Riverstown. Ger Oakley, therefore, is from County Tipperary, playing in the Offaly Championship with an Offaly Club. Likewise the Monegall lads are living in Offaly, but playing for and in Tipperary.

As far as I know, you cannot declare for your political county.

[armaghniac]

is Ballaghaderreen the Nagorno-Karabakh of Connacht?

Anyhow I think Armagh should recover those lands than ended up in Louth, everything from Slab Murphy's house to Shanmullagh and the Down invaders should be driven out of Ballybot and points south and west.

[Jinxy]

is Ballaghaderreen the Nagorno-Karabakh of Connacht?

Anyhow I think Armagh should recover those lands than ended up in Louth, everything from Slab Murphy's house to Shanmullagh and the Down invaders should be driven out of Ballybot and points south and west.

Lets not get the Kerry lads involved in this.

[Lar Naparka]

Lar, wouldn't every town and village be split if we were to take the Parnellite affair into account?

The short answer is that they would if they had nothing better to do with their time.
I know families that don't get along together because of their great-grandfathers took opposing sides in the Civil War.
The Parnell split was only a single generation before that.
BTW, I'm not saying that the row in Ballagh actually stems from this split but the indications are that it did.

Rows like that can last for generations even when the cause of the original conflict has long been forgotten.
Parnell spoke at a meeting in Ballagh in 1891, some months before he died.
I was told that well over 3,000 attended and there was an almighty riot as those for and against him laid into each other.
Everyone had a ball by all accounts.
By now, John Dillon was the leader of the group of Irish MPs who opposed Parnell and I know Parnell had great support throughout East Mayo so I imagine that the GAA split could have arisen because of political differences.

[Ard-Rí]

Moneygall in Offaly was treacherously given to Tipperary by some Bishop back in the 1800s,

So Obama is actually  a Tipperary man?