Monaghan v Mayo - Inniskeen, 10th April 2011

[Main Street]

The bookies are calling an even game.

Cork are 1-5 to beat Armagh whilst Galway, our benefactors in the survival stakes, are 13-8 to beat the Dubs.

If Mayo bring their league form then you'd have to say the game is theirs. With Monaghan possibly having greater motivation to win, might be a factor, but you still need a team to carry that off. Mayo just won't turn up and let that happen and we will have to improve greatly on recent performances.

[Lar Naparka]

Can any of the Monaghan lads tell me why the game is being played in Inishkeen?
It seems to be a very isolated spot and hard enough to get to?

It is. There seems to be this notion that Monaghan like playing teams in Inniskeen, maybe after the Tyrone game there last year. Clones is the allocated county ground but Inniskeen seems to overrule that decision. It's a great setup,don't get me wrong. Maybe the county board feel (and arguably rightly so) that it deserves reward for it's investment. It's my understanding though that the money made from selling the original ground in Inniskeen more than paid for the new development.

I'm a Monahan man living in Belfast and it's handier for me to get to Inniskeen than folk from North Monaghan, so I'm not compaining.. It's a lovely part of the drumlin countryside too..

Mayo used to play leaguer matches in Crossmolina for a while and it's damn awkward to get to the place when you're travelling down from Dublin and planning to return afterwards. It was a long slog for supporters from other counties as well. I guess County Boards have their own logic..
I don't mind a spin up the M1 and taking a turn off for Hackballscross. It's only five miles or so from there so I should be able to figure it out when I get close to Hack.
As for the game itself, I expect a good hard match. Monaghan are a better side than their league form suggests and I feel they have one good game in them while the Mayo lads will be leppin' ot of their skins to stake a place for the championships.
If I can get anyone willing to put up with me talking all the way up and back, it will be a great way to pass an afternoon. 

[Main Street]

I thought you Mayo lads all talked at the same time.

[muppet]

I thought you Mayo lads all talked at the same time.

Mayo women do.

[Maguire01]

Dessie Mone is a very poor replacement for D Freeman imho.

How many times have you seen him play this year?

Also, with regard to Iniskeen, isnt it a hangover from Bantys policy of 'bringing the football to the people'  ? Which sceptics suggested was closer to 'we could be exposed in the wide open spaces of clones, so lets play somewhere else'

I can't recall any such policy. I had always thought it was to bring opposing teams to a tighter ground to make the most of home advantage.

[armaghniac]

It's only five miles or so from there so I should be able to figure it out when I get close to Hack.

Head along the mighty N53, to the Cross of Hackball, and take a left, go 1km or so and at the first crossroad take a right.

Mayo women do.

The Mayo women bate Monaghan manys the time.

[Main Street]

Follow the smell of diesel at Hackballscross.

[IolarCoisCuain]

Do you know who had a lot of trouble getting to Iniskeen once? Paddy Kavanagh:

Iniskeen Road: July Evening

The bicycles go by in twos and threes -
There's a dance in Billy Brennan's barn to-night,
And there's the half-talk code of mysteries
And the wink-and-elbow language of delight.
Half-past eight and there is not a spot
Upon a mile of road, no shadow thrown
That might turn out a man or woman, not
A footfall tapping secrecies of stone.
I have what every poet hates in spite
Of all the solemn talk of contemplation.
Oh, Alexander Selkirk knew the plight
Of being king and government and nation.
A road, a mile of kingdom, I am king
Of banks and stones and every blooming thing.


He was the boy, Kavanagh. Second only to Yeats as our greatest 20th century poet. Hope you're all proud of him in Monaghan.

[armaghniac]

An alternative route to Inniskeen from Dublin, the shortest by distance, is from Ardee to Louth via Mullacrew.

But beware and bring your map if travelling this way, as Kavanagh discovered.

The roads around Mullacrew were a tangled skein; they were laid down by random and led everywhere and nowhere.
All that evening we drove around the wet roads. The poor ass was tired and as broken-hearted as ourselves..... We were in Fairyland.

[moysider]

An alternative route to Inniskeen from Dublin, the shortest by distance, is from Ardee to Louth via Mullacrew.

But beware and bring your map if travelling this way, as Kavanagh discovered.

The roads around Mullacrew were a tangled skein; they were laid down by random and led everywhere and nowhere.
All that evening we drove around the wet roads. The poor ass was tired and as broken-hearted as ourselves..... We were in Fairyland.

Probably not the same poor beast that the following was penned about. Fair play to the 'F**ker from Mucker', he could write a bit. In fact he was one of our greatest poets. Up there with Máirtín Ó Díreáin as the best ever.

Unfortunately can t get to this great part of the country the next day and it pisses me off. Instead I have to run around Connie for my sins.

You wont find this in the text books but .......

KERR'S ASS
We borrowed the loan of Kerr's big ass
To go to Dundalk with butter,
Brought him home the evening before the market
An exile that night in Mucker.

We heeled up the cart before the door,
We took the harness inside –
The straw-stuffed straddle, the broken breeching
With bits of bull-wire tied;

The winkers that had no choke-band,
The collar and the reins...
In Ealing Broadway, London Town
I name their several names

Until a world comes to life –
Morning, the silent bog,
And the god of imagination waking
In a Mucker fog.

[haranguerer]

Dessie Mone is a very poor replacement for D Freeman imho.

How many times have you seen him play this year?

Also, with regard to Iniskeen, isnt it a hangover from Bantys policy of 'bringing the football to the people'  ? Which sceptics suggested was closer to 'we could be exposed in the wide open spaces of clones, so lets play somewhere else'

I can't recall any such policy. I had always thought it was to bring opposing teams to a tighter ground to make the most of home advantage.

I've seen Mone play twice this year, and many times prior to that. Enough to make a judgement on him I would have thought. Its rather interesting that you took it as a slight on Mone rather than as a compliment to Freeman.

In terms of Bantys policy, I think theres little doubt that he chose to do so to suit monaghans physical style of play - getting in amongst the opposition and disrupting them. I agree with grandmaster flash that it isnt as desirable now as m'han have fast young players coming through - mcmanus in particular needs space and if he gets it will destroy teams, but do you really think it is likely that Banty moved to a tighter pitch knowing that it would limit space for his players, if he didnt feel such space was more of a liability than an asset? My arse it was to enable a smaller crowd to stand closer to the pitch, whatever he said.

[Main Street]

He was the boy, Kavanagh. Second only to Yeats as our greatest 20th century poet. Hope you're all proud of him in Monaghan.

He might be that, but as legends go he trails in behind the Inniskeen O'Rourkes.

[IolarCoisCuain]

He was the boy, Kavanagh. Second only to Yeats as our greatest 20th century poet. Hope you're all proud of him in Monaghan.

He might be that, but as legends go he trails in behind the Inniskeen O'Rourkes.

I'm not buying that Main Street. Check out this one:

EPIC by PATRICK KAVANAGH, 1938

I have lived in important places, times
When great events were decided : who owned
That half a rood of rock, a no-man's land
Surrounded by our pitchfork-armed claims.

I heard the Duffys shouting "Damn your soul"
And old McCabe stripped to the waist, seen
Step the plot defying blue cast-steel -
"Here is the march along these iron stones."

That was the year of the Munich bother. Which
Was most important ? I inclined
To lose my faith in Ballyrush and Gortin
Till Homer's ghost came whispering to my mind.
He said : I made the Iliad from such
A local row. Gods make their own importance.

"That was the year of the Munich bother." Great. Just great. And the line about gods making their importance is important to us all as GAA men. You'll meet the misguided in the bars and pubs around Ireland who'll tell you that it's all about the San Siro or the Bernabeu or the Lord knows where. No it's not. It's about Inniskeen and Crossmolina and Ballyrush and Ballina and Gortin and Knockmore. Gods make their own importance.

[the Deel Rover]

Can any of the Monaghan lads tell me why the game is being played in Inishkeen?
It seems to be a very isolated spot and hard enough to get to?

It is. There seems to be this notion that Monaghan like playing teams in Inniskeen, maybe after the Tyrone game there last year. Clones is the allocated county ground but Inniskeen seems to overrule that decision. It's a great setup,don't get me wrong. Maybe the county board feel (and arguably rightly so) that it deserves reward for it's investment. It's my understanding though that the money made from selling the original ground in Inniskeen more than paid for the new development.

I'm a Monahan man living in Belfast and it's handier for me to get to Inniskeen than folk from North Monaghan, so I'm not compaining.. It's a lovely part of the drumlin countryside too..

Mayo used to play leaguer matches in Crossmolina for a while and it's damn awkward to get to the place when you're travelling down from Dublin and planning to return afterwards. It was a long slog for supporters from other counties as well. I guess County Boards have their own logic..
I don't mind a spin up the M1 and taking a turn off for Hackballscross. It's only five miles or so from there so I should be able to figure it out when I get close to Hack.
As for the game itself, I expect a good hard match. Monaghan are a better side than their league form suggests and I feel they have one good game in them while the Mayo lads will be leppin' ot of their skins to stake a place for the championships.
If I can get anyone willing to put up with me talking all the way up and back, it will be a great way to pass an afternoon. 

would ya go on out of that lar sure tis only a stones throw from Ballina (Andy Merrigan didn't find it awkward to get to  )  besides at least there used to be an atmosphere at the games but don't get me started on that one 

[armaghniac]

Gods make their own importance.

If yez want to go to God's own land you can visit the home of the All Ireland club champions in 15 minutes from Kavanagh country.