The biggest and longest running gaelic games forum on the web

[Dinny Breen]

When was that added?

How old is the the board?

[TacadoirArdMhacha]

1997 or thereabouts I think? I've only been about from 2003 myself but people like AZOffaly, Hardy and Tony Fearon were early posters I think. I believe the board was the original www.gaa.ie though I'm open to correction?

[seafoid]

1997 or thereabouts I think? I've only been about from 2003 myself but people like AZOffaly, Hardy and Tony Fearon were early posters I think. I believe the board was the original www.gaa.ie though I'm open to correction?

1997 definitely. The 98 Offaly Clare match was a highlight.
Fearon's hotel moment in 2002 hasn't been bettered really.

[Armaghgeddon]

Can trace these websites back....


An fear rua 16th August 2000
GAABoard 5 September 2001 (with its current name); GAA.IE 26th December 1996.
Hoganstand back to 18th October 2000
Orchardcounty.com 2nd Feb 2002
Reservoirdubs august 2002
GlobalGAA February 2009

Here is an image of old GAABoard/gaa.ie

http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f384/armaghgeddon/olggaaboard.jpg

[gaaboard]

The origins of this community would have been the gaa.ie (unofficial at the time) guestbook from 1996 to 1997.
In 1997 a Discussion Forum was added to the gaa.ie site.
In 1998 it moved to a Usenet newsgroup.
A lot of people were struggling with the Newsgroup format, so in March 1999 the first edition of this forum appeared on gaa.hypermart.net free hosting domain, with most of the newsgroup people migrating over to it.
In 2000, the gaaboard.com domain name was used for the first time.

I have a screen shots and samples of some of the various guises of this community that I must pull into a proper document.

[Farrandeelin]

Premierview have over 7000 Tipp and non Tipp on it. It's 10 years old.

[dec]

What it looked like in the middle of 1997

http://web.archive.org/web/19970713171934/http://www.gaa.ie/discussions/

[johnneycool]

Can trace these websites back....


An fear rua 16th August 2000
GAABoard 5 September 2001 (with its current name); GAA.IE 26th December 1996.
Hoganstand back to 18th October 2000
Orchardcounty.com 2nd Feb 2002
Reservoirdubs august 2002
GlobalGAA February 2009

Here is an image of old GAABoard/gaa.ie

http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f384/armaghgeddon/olggaaboard.jpg

An Fear Rua was a follow on from a Clare hurlers forum set up in the mid 90's, so that claim may be in dispute!!

[AZOffaly]

What it looked like in the middle of 1997

http://web.archive.org/web/19970713171934/http://www.gaa.ie/discussions/

Plus ca change Look at some of the topics

Mayo, knockin' on Heaven's door - again - Hardyarse the Fiddler 18:05:58 7/11/97 (6)
GAA in royal province of Ulster - Greg Mcmuinneog
At it again in Tyrone! - Meath Avenger
G.A.A. Restructure - Colin Mc Nicholas
RTE Commentators - Charlie Hickey
Sligo Minors; Wasted Oppurtunities. - Senan Cleary
Spillane - Ciaran O'Loughlin
RTE Live Coverage - Tony Fearon 11:14:59 7/03/97 (11
Just a QUICK couple of words to Kildare - Hardyarse the Fiddler 21:00:29 7/02/97 (17)
Proposed Restructuring of National leagues - Tony Fearon 16:20:28 7/02/97 (


Some things do change though Offaly were about to win the Leinster Football Final after Meath and Kildare fought each other to a standstill. And the Hurlers were a year away from beating Kilkenny in the All Ireland Final.

[Premier Emperor]

Of other forums that have came and gone, there was hurlingandfootball.com that went by the wayside in the early 2000's, clarehurlers.com was a notorious one - when it closed some of its poster for a time drifted over to here but by that stage it was now starting to become more football biased and most of them went on to AFR as at the time their forum was pretty much dead and better to land on and build upon for themselves rather than have resistance elsewhere. There was the old local Dubs Forum that eventually died when Reservoir Dubs started getting strong.

A few years ago "someone" resurrected the Clare Hurlers name by launching a forum with the web address clarehurlers.net and many of the old usernames started appearing there and people started to sing up to it - a few days later it was revealed to be a prank played by a few people on Premierview known as GAEJ, or Gaels Against Event Junkies.

Clarehurlers came into existence in the early 2000s. There was some madcap government scheme to give every savage in Ennis a grant to buy a computer and throw money at people to set up websites.

The website itself was a zoo where all sorts of abuse was thrown. Tipperary got the brunt of it of course, as every Banner yokel was given free rein to have a cut at us. A typical Clare username would be something like 'Leahy is a p***k'.

Eventually the people who ran the Clare site forgot to renew the domain name and it disappeared.
Most of them jumped over to An Fear Rua which had a forum that was very dead by that stage.

[Premier Emperor]

Premierview have over 7000 Tipp and non Tipp on it. It's 10 years old.

The Premierview forum started in 2001, the same year we won the All Ireland. 

[AZOffaly]

I can't remember when I joined this forum, but I know I was in Arizona, and it wasn't long after I arrived there. I'd guess late 1997/early 1998 would be about right.

[magpie seanie]

Not 100% sure myself, think it was around 2000/2001. "Get the hotels booked" will never be topped though there were many great threads down those 10+ years.

[The Biff]

Ah the nostalgia season begins.   

That's great stuff being able to look at some of the old web archives.  I reckoned I joined in around the time of the Leinster Final in 1997.  I had been reading for quite a while, and I will admit I felt almost intimidated by the knowledge of a lot of the contributors back then.  The Meath presence was substantial, as was the active Female contingent (Ann, a few from Waterford whose names I cant quite remember, and I think Meath Avenger was of the fairer sex).  Offaly football's last real success gave me the courage to join in the banter.  Age, wisdom and the willingness of others to let fly quickly has led to my reduced contributions at this stage, but I still have a look now and again.

Impersonation - Bummer, you were a ba$tad alright.  I remember that IP Addresses had to be displayed at one stage to try to weed out the subversives.  Luckily, the fad passed.

Apart from an occasional visitor, Tony Fearon pretty much carried the Ulster banner single-handedly.  I'll admit that he riled me up easily many times with his dogmatic opinions, but I'll also admit that he deserves huge credit for being prepared to use his real name (at least I think it's real) and for keeping the interest up for so long.

I think Jim Gallagher was the original Moderator/Administrator/guy-who-setup-the-site.  Fair play to you Jim, your legacy lives on.

[Farrandeelin]

I joined myself in Spring 04, after hearing about it on MWR. I initially used my real name for one post. Then I changed (on advice of others) to An Cnoc Mor. Then when we made the move here in November 06, I changed to my current name.