Club History

Our 2000 heroes to be honoured at 2025 Mayo Intermediate Final

It is a huge honour for our club that the team of 2000, winners of the Mayo Intermediate Football Championship, will be introduced as the half-time jubilee team at this year’s Mayo IFC Final on Sunday, October 19 (throw-in, 2pm). Twenty-five years on, we recall with pride the feats of a special group of players, mentors and officers who brought the Sweeney Cup to Ballinrobe. We have won three intermediate titles (1979, 2000 and 2002) in our history and many of these players also featured in 2002. To mark the occasion, we’ve begun collecting newspaper cuttings and memories from the 2000 campaign (see below), with more to follow in the build-up to, and following, the October 19 event. This is a fitting tribute to a team that excelled in that final win over Ballaghaderreen.  On Saturday night, October 18, the group will meet for a social gathering in Ballinrobe. Time and venue to be finalised early in the week. 2000 final starting team and panel: Paul Tiernan; Colm Jennings, Paul Finnerty, Donal Costello; Ruairi Keane, Fergal Costello, Harry Murphy; Sean Grimes, Fergal O’Loughlin; Aidan Golden (RIP), Tony Walkin (captain), Adrian Flannery; Keith McTigue, Maurice Horan, Micheal Keane. Subs: Pat Malone, Pat Kennedy, Alan Flannery, Peter Walkin, Anthony O’Toole, Sean McCaughey, Colm Killeen, Kieran Sheridan, Liam Butler, Declan Costello, Jim Staunton, Tom Sweeney. Management: Peter Ford (Manager), Martin Walsh, Billy Burke, Sean Fahy, Dick Langan (Selectors) Club Officers 2000: Martin Murphy (Chairperson), Katherine Butler, now O’Loughlin (Secretary), Seamus Macken (Treasurer) A special word for the late Aidan Golden, who will be represented on the day. We miss him dearly. Best of luck to the team captain Tony Walkin who is taking part in the Ballinrobe RFC Quid Games in the McWilliam Park Hotel, Claremorris, on Saturday night, October 18, and will therefore miss our social gathering.  If you’d like to donate to his fundraising campaign, you can do so here. It’s a pity the clash is taking place – we only learned about our jubilee appearance in early October. We wish the rugby club the very best with their event. Likewise, they have extended good wishes to everyone involved in our jubilee reunion. Browse through the various cuttings HERE. It is set to public access so if it’s not working for you might need to try on a different phone – or get an eight-year-old to figure it out for you:)  We will be adding to these in the build-up to October 18.      

Our 2000 heroes to be honoured at 2025 Mayo Intermediate Final Read More »

Club History Series

Club member Liam Horan is compiling Club History Video Series on Facebook. Here are the episodes to date – you don’t need to be a member of Facebook to view them, just click the link: Imminent: The Ballinrobe v The Neale rivalry of the late 1970s, early 1980s. We’ve started flying a few kites for that already see HERE Episode 9, 1950s and 1960s revisited – The McSweeney family spent about 16 years in Ballinrobe in the 1950s and the 1960s. David and Dan played with the club and father, Denis, was very influential in the purchase and development of Flanagan Park. All three were mentioned in previous episodes and we were delighted to track down David for this episode. We are joined by Michael Coyne, Billy Horan and James Bradley. We also pay tribute to the late Gerry Fahy, who died suddenly earlier this week, and who was centrally involved in so many great football successes (male and female) in Ballinrobe CBS and Ballinrobe Community School Episode 8, South Mayo Junior Championship win, 1971 – guests Michael Coyne, Noel Galvin and Tommy O’Malley recall the historic year of 1971, when we won the South Mayo Junior title for the first time since 1958. Lots of good memories and newspaper reports on the three big games of that year against Kilmaine (South sem-final, Irishtown (South final) and Ardnaree Sarsfields (Mayo semi-final, where we came acropper) Episode 7, Flanagan Park 2 – major developments – guests Michael Coyne, John Gilrane and Sean Murphy reflect on major developments at Flanagan Park since the 1970s. It’s about the venue, but it’s really about the people. Some of the pictures are obscured in the video, you can see them HERE  Episode 6, the purchase of Flanagan Park – guests Michael Coyne, Billy Horan and Jim McHugh, all members of the original committee that purchased and developed Flanagan Park in the early 1960s. Plus current Pitch Officer David Walsh, who has some breaking news.  Episode 5, 1979 Mayo Intermediate title – our first intermediate championship. Interviewees are Tommy O’Malley, Geoff Diskin, Denis Conroy and Padraic Costello. Some of the pictures are obscured in the video, you can see them HERE  Episode 4, 1886 to 1969 – interview 4 with Michael Coyne + pictures Episode 3, 1960s – interview 3 with Michael Coyne + pictures Episode 2, 1950s – interview 2 with Michael Coyne, replete with pictorial records Episode 1, 1950s – interview 1 with Michael Coyne   Watch social media for further details. Liam is on the look-out for photographs and other memorabilia. And he is open to suggestions as to who he should interview as well as we set about joining the dots in the club history. All photos from the full history series can be downloaded HERE   Other videos that capture the past: 2020 short interview with Tom Treacy (1953 All-Ireland Minor winner and Ballinrobe star over many years); Tribute show to the late Kieran Cawley 2020;  Tribute by Michael Coyne to the late Joe Jennings 2020.

Club History Series Read More »