Provincial affiliation

[Hardy]

I suppose it depends on what the idea of a province means to you. It means nothing to me. It makes as much sense to me to support a team because it comes from the same province as my team as it does to support them because their name starts with the same letter as my team. It's a good job Monaghan don't meet Mayo very often or I'd be in an awful puzzle.

Tyrone people, why were you not in Croke Park roaring on Declan Browne and his T-team when they won the Tommy Makem Cup? Shame.

[Main Street]

The ramifications of the border splitting the province is not a theory but an experience shared and a strong enough solidarity develops.
It's not that difficult to appreciate some of the reasons why there is a greater level of solidarity in Ulster.
Supporting another team from Ulster in the All Ireland final for example is not to be confused at all with the intensity of supporting ones own county.
There is no pain if that team loses.
As for the wearing of other county shirts

Also look at munster ruby fans - there were handfuls of these 'fans' up until they started becomming successful - and now being 'munster' transcends being from cork, kerry, limerick....
bandwagon jumpers though !

Many family members of mine in Kerry, staunch GAA trad, regard themselves as an integral part of brand Munster in rugby.
I must ask them, how do they pronounce that fine Munster name Federico Pucciariello?

[Bogball XV]

Yeah, I've noticed this partisan thing only happens in Ulster - everywhere else people use different criteria to favour teams in the latter stages of the championship.  I truly believe that for (say) a Tyrone-Sligo AI Final, all the supposedly neutral Ulster folk would support Tyrone (whether they'd admit it or not), even if they hadn't had a nark with Seanie. 

In my experience that's utter nonsense Billy, as many posters go on to comment Connaught teams will normally back each other, as will munster supporters and teams (this being nordieboard we can't verify that).  Leinster teams and supporters don't particularly, but then not many have reached finals since I've been south
Personally a team's province used to mean little to me, but hearing the utter nonsense spouted by people (not the media surprisingly, though probably people influenced by the media) about the dirt and physicality of ulster teams would make set aside my hatred of tyrone and support them - it does depend who they are playing however, and having suffered the arrogance of many, many kerry supporters over the years, I wouldn't support them against anybody.  I remember sitting in croker 2 years ago, absolutely devastated for mayo after 10 mins of the senior final (and that wasn't just because moran was the manager).
I attended a tipp hurling shindig 2/3 years ago when Cork played Galway in the hurling final, I was shocked by the amount of them who were up for cork, not because of galway's proximity (nor the aftermath of the '88 final), but because Cork were munster!!