Just thinking about Benny Coulter's retirement. Some concentration of talent in one small area in South Down. The bridge had Benny, Mickey Linden and Tom O'Hare. All within a mile of each other. Obviously the Sés at Ard a'Bhothair will stand out above and beyond anyone else with the lads and their 24 All Irelands all within 50 yards of each other. Any others? I know I'm missing obvious ones but get them up lads
Valentia Island & nearby St. Marys gave us Mick O'Connell, Jack O'Shea, Maurice Fitzgerald and Ger Lynch.
Quote from: muppet on November 25, 2014, 10:22:01 PM
Valentia Island & nearby St. Marys gave us Mock O'Connell, Jack O'Shea, Maurice Fitzgerald and Ger Lynch.
Don't forget Bryan Sheehan!!
Quote from: 5 Sams on November 25, 2014, 10:26:39 PM
Quote from: muppet on November 25, 2014, 10:22:01 PM
Valentia Island & nearby St. Marys gave us Mock O'Connell, Jack O'Shea, Maurice Fitzgerald and Ger Lynch.
Don't forget Bryan Sheehan!!
Ger Driscoll as well.
Some Parish's are bigger, and bigger catchment than some city teams ffs
Walsh Island in Offaly
Aughabrack for its size and location has far exceeded expectations and produced the like of Patsy Kerlin, Paddy & Danny Ball, Brian Dooher and Stephen O'Neill.
The Moy is a small a wee place in every way but produced the cavanaghs, Mellon and Jordan, holmes and the donaghys.
Dromid Parish in South Kerry would include Waterville, so you'd have Declan O'Sullivan, Dennis Dwyer, Mick O'Dwyer, Paddy Curran (the unfortunate minor), and a host of other players who played for Kerry at various levels.
As Parishes go Coalisland/Clone in tyrone area must be up there. Not entirely sure what way the parish breakdown is but within a 7-8 mile radius there is a serious number of clubs.
Coalisland, Clonoe, Ardboe, Moortown, Derrylaughlin,Brockagh, Stewartstown, Derrytresk,Killyman, Brackaville, Dungannon, Edendork, Ballinderry
Templenoe which has a population of about 80 produced the 3 Spillanes who won 18 All Ireland medals, plus surely more to come for Killian Spillane.
I think families are an anomaly.
Not all in the one parish but within a 10 mile radius of Cross, covering 3 counties, there are a serious amount of clubs. In Armagh you have Culloville, Silverbridge, Cullyhanna, Dorsey Emmets, Newtownhamilton, Mullaghbawn, Forkhill, Dromintee, in Monaghan, Castleblayney Faughs, Blackhill Emeralds, Oram, Iniskeen Grattans, Donaghmoyne, Toome, and in Louth you have Roche Emmets, Sheelagh and Kilkerley Emmets. I may have missed a few in Monaghan and Louth but that is at least 18 teams in a 10 mile radius with at least 7 of them playing senior football and maybe 8 if Donaghmoyne gain promotion in the league, which they still can as they are in the league semi waiting on Iniskeen to finish off in the Intermediate final.
And of course Donaghmoyne are to women's club football what Cross are to the men.
There's a place known as The Golden Mile in Ballintubber. Within a very short space of each other you have the O'Connors, Feeneys, Prendergasts and Geraghtys. Paddy Prendergast was full-back on the Mayo All-Ireland winning teams of 1950/51; his brothers Murt and Ray were very good full-backs too and Ray was full-back for Mayo for around a decade in the 60s/70s. Murt's son Tom was a selector with James Horan. The Geraghtys were home to Ger, who was the star of the 1983 Mayo U21 All-Ireland winning teams and was a huge loss to Mayo when he moved to Chicago. John O'Mahony almost had him back in 1989. His nephews Danny and Ray both played county minor. Ger Feeney was reputed to be one of Mayo's best ever defenders, even if he played in the barren 1970s. His sons Richie and Alan played with Mayo and Richie is still on the panel. Both play with Castlebar, where Ger moved to, but Richie is now living back in the family house in Ballintubber. Ger's brother Seán was County Board Secretary for over a decade. Then there's the O'Connors ... Cillian is a current All Star, 19-year-old Diarmuid a huge talent in the Mayo senior squad while Padraic and Ruaidhri both played Minor for Mayo. All four brothers scored goals for Ballintubber in their Mayo SFC semi-final win over Knockmore in September. I'd say less than 300 metres separates all these families and it's a rural area, probably not ten families there. Cranmore is the townland I think. You'll do well to get such a concentration of quality players in so short a space, involving more than one family.
Quote from: rrhf on November 26, 2014, 08:40:20 AM
The Moy is a small a wee place in every way but produced the cavanaghs, Mellon and Jordan, holmes and the donaghys.
Edward Coyne, Peter O'Neill, Jimmy McCann, Eunan Deeny, Pat Donaghy, Jackie Duffy
Surely the starting point for this debate would be what constitutes a small parish? Aside from the fact that in Offaly at least, it would be comparatively rare for any club to pick from an entire parish - usually there would be 2 or 3 clubs in any single parish - I always find it amusing that outside of Dublin, around 90% of clubs seem to think of themselves as "small clubs". There are people in St Brigids (Ros) that have tried to argue to me that they're a small enough club - now if they're small then you could count on one hand the number of big clubs in the province of Connacht, never mind the fact that there would be none at all in Roscommon.
To my mind any club that has a catchment area with a population of 1000 people or more (obviously it might be a little different up North where large swathes of the population in certain areas aren't really a potential GAA audience) is not small. By that measure the market leaders in Offaly would have to be Clareen for hurling (The Dooleys, Eugene Coughlan, Kevin Kinahan, Joe Bergin) and yeah, Walsh Island for football.
Quote from: Bensars on November 26, 2014, 09:59:21 AM
As Parishes go Coalisland/Clone in tyrone area must be up there. Not entirely sure what way the parish breakdown is but within a 7-8 mile radius there is a serious number of clubs.
Coalisland, Clonoe, Ardboe, Moortown, Derrylaughlin,Brockagh, Stewartstown, Derrytresk,Killyman, Brackaville, Dungannon, Edendork, Ballinderry
this is true but within a that radius either way you could also add in Ogra Colmcille in County Derry then Maghery, Clonmore, Collegeland in Armagh and also in Tyrone you could add Moy, Donaghmore, Rock to the list of clubs listed above.
Always felt the Coalisland area was a real hotbed for football. In an outsider opinion Coalisland is made up of Coalisland, Clonoe and Brackaville all within the one area (locals might not like that description) - I cant even tell when I go from one to the other, its only when I see the pitches....then go the other way and you are barely out of the 'Island and you arrive in Edendork
Quote from: Lone Shark on November 26, 2014, 04:34:41 PM
Surely the starting point for this debate would be what constitutes a small parish? Aside from the fact that in Offaly at least, it would be comparatively rare for any club to pick from an entire parish - usually there would be 2 or 3 clubs in any single parish - I always find it amusing that outside of Dublin, around 90% of clubs seem to think of themselves as "small clubs". There are people in St Brigids (Ros) that have tried to argue to me that they're a small enough club - now if they're small then you could count on one hand the number of big clubs in the province of Connacht, never mind the fact that there would be none at all in Roscommon.
To my mind any club that has a catchment area with a population of 1000 people or more (obviously it might be a little different up North where large swathes of the population in certain areas aren't really a potential GAA audience) is not small. By that measure the market leaders in Offaly would have to be Clareen for hurling (The Dooleys, Eugene Coughlan, Kevin Kinahan, Joe Bergin) and yeah, Walsh Island for football.
How big would Banagher and whatever parish Seir Kieran is be ?
Banagher is a decent sized town by Offaly standards, but Rynaghs would also draw on Cloghan, and the area in between. Clareen is tiny.
Nationwide once did a feature on a tiny townland in Tipperary which had a ridiculous amount of All Ireland Medals
Quote from: NaomhBridAbú on November 26, 2014, 03:56:39 PM
Quote from: rrhf on November 26, 2014, 08:40:20 AM
The Moy is a small a wee place in every way but produced the cavanaghs, Mellon and Jordan, holmes and the donaghys.
Edward Coyne, Peter O'Neill, Jimmy McCann, Eunan Deeny, Pat Donaghy, Jackie Duffy
Shoot and The Guy.
Quote from: Lone Shark on November 26, 2014, 04:34:41 PM
Surely the starting point for this debate would be what constitutes a small parish? Aside from the fact that in Offaly at least, it would be comparatively rare for any club to pick from an entire parish - usually there would be 2 or 3 clubs in any single parish - I always find it amusing that outside of Dublin, around 90% of clubs seem to think of themselves as "small clubs". There are people in St Brigids (Ros) that have tried to argue to me that they're a small enough club - now if they're small then you could count on one hand the number of big clubs in the province of Connacht, never mind the fact that there would be none at all in Roscommon.
To my mind any club that has a catchment area with a population of 1000 people or more (obviously it might be a little different up North where large swathes of the population in certain areas aren't really a potential GAA audience) is not small. By that measure the market leaders in Offaly would have to be Clareen for hurling (The Dooleys, Eugene Coughlan, Kevin Kinahan, Joe Bergin) and yeah, Walsh Island for football.
Maybe I should change the title of the thread to "Townlands" producing brilliant footballers.
Quote from: nrico2006 on November 26, 2014, 08:09:43 AM
Aughabrack for its size and location has far exceeded expectations and produced the like of Patsy Kerlin, Paddy & Danny Ball, Brian Dooher and Stephen O'Neill.
Good man Nrico.
Also Adrian Ball and Cathal Blee won minor and U21 titles I think.
We're a VERY rural sparsely populated town land yet for a long time had two teams in the one parish.
Seeing Dooher and Stevie lift 3 Sam's was very special and a great reward for us all
Quote from: Bensars on November 26, 2014, 09:59:21 AM
As Parishes go Coalisland/Clone in tyrone area must be up there. Not entirely sure what way the parish breakdown is but within a 7-8 mile radius there is a serious number of clubs.
Coalisland, Clonoe, Ardboe, Moortown, Derrylaughlin,Brockagh, Stewartstown, Derrytresk,Killyman, Brackaville, Dungannon, Edendork, Ballinderry
I reckon there are about 7 parishes in there
Quote from: seafoid on November 26, 2014, 04:53:45 PM
How big would Banagher and whatever parish Seir Kieran is be ?
As AZ has said, Rynaghs pulls from a large area, including Banagher (the main town), Cloghan (a smaller town and traditionally the football end of the parish) and a decent chunk of rural territory in between and over towards Lumcloon (where Ferbane power station used to be). Without having any numbers to hand I'd wager that they'd almost certainly be in the top six or seven clubs in Offaly in terms of population and possibly even higher. Not as much as Tullamore or Edenderry, but probably close enough to Birr and Clara, and I'd struggle to think of any other clubs that would have more than them. Gracefield maybe, but most of the new residents there would be exiled Dubs who would have no real connection to the area.
Seir Kieran/Clareen would be the other end of the scale. They're reputed to be the smallest parish in Ireland (I know a lot of places claim that and I don't know the factual answer) but if they have a total catchment of over 400, women and men from 0-95, that'd be the height of it.
Whether they have a smaller pick than clubs like Ballinagar, Kilclonfert, Bracknagh, Clonmore Harps, Ballycommon and some of the other North Offaly clubs that are all either a third or a quarter of a parish is another matter. I couldn't tell you that with any certainty.
A bit off topic but Rock Street in Tralee which with 20 houses would be smaller than most parishes has 83 All-Ireland medals.
Lavey in county Derry would be fairly small and 2 families gave Derry about 6-7 county men from the 90`s on, Coleraine though big on paper would be a very small club and only in recent years have come to the fore. Having played against them at Junior level, i think it was one of the biggets achievements in Derry for them to win a Derry senior county title all within 10yrs
Quote from: Wildweasel74 on November 26, 2014, 09:47:13 PM
Lavey in county Derry would be fairly small and 2 families gave Derry about 6-7 county men from the 90`s on, Coleraine though big on paper would be a very small club and only in recent years have come to the fore. Having played against them at Junior level, i think it was one of the biggets achievements in Derry for them to win a Derry senior county title all within 10yrs
Two downeys and collie and Johnny Mcgurk. Hugh Martin was finished up around 89 and big bro Anthony wasn't playing after 79. Pound for pound, Johnny was probably the best club player around in Derry in the nineties. IMHO .
Regarding coleraine, agree, one of the greatest achievements in the history of Derry football to come from where they did to win a championship. Town of coleraine wouldn't exactly be known as a hotbed of Gaa activity but one man and his 10 or 11 chislers certainly played a part. Don't forget however, that geographically, they have a massive area to pick from. Add in 5 or 6 feeder primary schools and a sprinkling of blow in cousins from Derry City, and it's a good base to work off. :) not much in portrush but there's a surprisingly large number of mass goers in p'stewart.
Moygownagh in Mayo is by reputation the smallest parish in Mayo and has Produced Pat holmes and Anthony Finnerty but like all genuinely small parishes success is fleeting and i now see they are bottom of Division 5 .
or the sadly now defunct Team of keenagh (now part of Crossmolian ) produced enda lavelle ,cathal carolan ,barry heffernan, PJ loftus jnr. and a whole host of minors and uder 21''s and we would definetly not breech the 1000 mark
Quote from: nrico2006 on November 26, 2014, 08:09:43 AM
Aughabrack for its size and location has far exceeded expectations and produced the like of Patsy Kerlin, Paddy & Danny Ball, Brian Dooher and Stephen O'Neill.
All blood related through the Kerlin line. Had a lesson in genealogy this evening.
Quote from: RedandGreenSniper on November 26, 2014, 03:55:20 PM
There's a place known as The Golden Mile in Ballintubber. Within a very short space of each other you have the O'Connors, Feeneys, Prendergasts and Geraghtys. Paddy Prendergast was full-back on the Mayo All-Ireland winning teams of 1950/51; his brothers Murt and Ray were very good full-backs too and Ray was full-back for Mayo for around a decade in the 60s/70s. Murt's son Tom was a selector with James Horan. The Geraghtys were home to Ger, who was the star of the 1983 Mayo U21 All-Ireland winning teams and was a huge loss to Mayo when he moved to Chicago. John O'Mahony almost had him back in 1989. His nephews Danny and Ray both played county minor. Ger Feeney was reputed to be one of Mayo's best ever defenders, even if he played in the barren 1970s. His sons Richie and Alan played with Mayo and Richie is still on the panel. Both play with Castlebar, where Ger moved to, but Richie is now living back in the family house in Ballintubber. Ger's brother Seán was County Board Secretary for over a decade. Then there's the O'Connors ... Cillian is a current All Star, 19-year-old Diarmuid a huge talent in the Mayo senior squad while Padraic and Ruaidhri both played Minor for Mayo. All four brothers scored goals for Ballintubber in their Mayo SFC semi-final win over Knockmore in September. I'd say less than 300 metres separates all these families and it's a rural area, probably not ten families there. Cranmore is the townland I think. You'll do well to get such a concentration of quality players in so short a space, involving more than one family.
Welcome back RGS! Great shout
Quote from: 5 Sams on November 26, 2014, 05:19:55 PM
Quote from: Lone Shark on November 26, 2014, 04:34:41 PM
Surely the starting point for this debate would be what constitutes a small parish? Aside from the fact that in Offaly at least, it would be comparatively rare for any club to pick from an entire parish - usually there would be 2 or 3 clubs in any single parish - I always find it amusing that outside of Dublin, around 90% of clubs seem to think of themselves as "small clubs". There are people in St Brigids (Ros) that have tried to argue to me that they're a small enough club - now if they're small then you could count on one hand the number of big clubs in the province of Connacht, never mind the fact that there would be none at all in Roscommon.
To my mind any club that has a catchment area with a population of 1000 people or more (obviously it might be a little different up North where large swathes of the population in certain areas aren't really a potential GAA audience) is not small. By that measure the market leaders in Offaly would have to be Clareen for hurling (The Dooleys, Eugene Coughlan, Kevin Kinahan, Joe Bergin) and yeah, Walsh Island for football.
Maybe I should change the title of the thread to "Townlands" producing brilliant footballers.
Sammy Bradley, man of the match for Slaughtneil in today's Ulster final is from the same townland as Anthony Tohill.
Quote from: Rois on November 28, 2014, 11:49:53 PM
Quote from: nrico2006 on November 26, 2014, 08:09:43 AM
Aughabrack for its size and location has far exceeded expectations and produced the like of Patsy Kerlin, Paddy & Danny Ball, Brian Dooher and Stephen O'Neill.
All blood related through the Kerlin line. Had a lesson in genealogy this evening.
If anything I would have thought there was a lot of Devine influence there.
Devine is the most popular name around the area alright but also a lot of Gormleys and all have nicknames. I presume a lot of parishes in Ireland are like this.
Kerlin, Ball, Dooher, O'Neill, Browne and Furey some of the lesser common names in the area.
Would anyone have any old pictures of Patsy Kerlin in his hay.
I was just a tot when the big man was doing the business. I've heard stories of him and Paddy Ball playing MF for Tyrone in the odd game.
Talking of pics, how many of ye have got framed photos of Canavan or Dooher (or your own county captain) lifting Sam on yer wall?
Was thinking would make a nice Christmas present. How would I get one?
QuoteTalking of pics, how many of ye have got framed photos of Canavan or Dooher (or your own county captain) lifting Sam on yer wall?
Was thinking would make a nice Christmas present. How would I get one?
The modern man uses such pics as the back ground on their tablet.
If it was someone from Cavan ro Mayo they'd probably have a black and white photograph.
Quote from: armaghniac on December 01, 2014, 12:59:15 PM
QuoteTalking of pics, how many of ye have got framed photos of Canavan or Dooher (or your own county captain) lifting Sam on yer wall?
Was thinking would make a nice Christmas present. How would I get one?
The modern man uses such pics as the back ground on their tablet.
If it was someone from Cavan ro Mayo they'd probably have a black and white photographs in more than one room !
Fixed that for you ;) .
Yes I think I might know that Armaghniac but I've been in a few people's house with proper framed photos as the ones on the web are pretty crap quality
Quote from: Bensars on December 01, 2014, 01:16:20 PM
Quote from: armaghniac on December 01, 2014, 12:59:15 PM
QuoteTalking of pics, how many of ye have got framed photos of Canavan or Dooher (or your own county captain) lifting Sam on yer wall?
Was thinking would make a nice Christmas present. How would I get one?
The modern man uses such pics as the back ground on their tablet.
If it was someone from Cavan ro Mayo they'd probably have a black and white photographs in more than one room !
Fixed that for you ;) .
I suppose in those counties they could have a picture in every room of their house!
Quote from: Bensars on November 26, 2014, 09:59:21 AM
As Parishes go Coalisland/Clone in tyrone area must be up there. Not entirely sure what way the parish breakdown is but within a 7-8 mile radius there is a serious number of clubs.
Coalisland, Clonoe, Ardboe, Moortown, Derrylaughlin,Brockagh, Stewartstown, Derrytresk,Killyman, Brackaville, Dungannon, Edendork, Ballinderry
You have named more than a few parishes there, however for a relatively small area it has produced some great ballers and teams - over 40 senior Tyrone championships have been won between the clubs. Interestingly enough I believe part of Ballinderry's parish is in Tyrone, and have been told that Enda Muldoon used to play for Tyrone under age teams. Anyway heres the names of a few players from that area:
Frank McGuigan - Ardboe (All Star 1984)
Fay Devlin - Ardboe (All Star 1995)
Brian McGuigan - Ardboe (All Star 2003)
Tommy McGuigan- Ardboe
Gavin Devlin - Ardboe
Kyle Coney - Ardboe
Kevin McCabe - Clonoe (All Star 1980)
Damian O'Hagan - Coalisland (All Star 1986)
Gerald Cavlan - Dungannon
Chris Lawn - Moortown
Stephen Lawn - Moortown
P.J Quinn - Moortown
Paul Devlin - Moortown
Dont forget the mighty JohnJoe.
John Joe only played well against the Rock :P
He played the odd decent games for the over 40s too