Club Radio

Our U14 team are into the South Mayo B championship final – tomorrow evening (Thursday, August 15) in Hollymount at 7o’c, versus Mayo Gaels. They defeated Davitts in the semi-final last night. Report HERE. Please come out and support this team who have displayed excellent form all year.

UPDATE – great turnout this morning to help out Tony Walkin and Tidy Towns chairman Tim O’Sullivan. Participants from the club: Aoibhe O’Malley, Gerry O’Malley, David Killeen, Colm Killeen, Ray McGreal, Tony Walkin, Mark Walkin, Eugene O’Malley, Michael Coyne, Marie O’Haire, Padraic Costello Jnr, Adrian Flannery, Martin Flannery, Alan Flannery. Am I missing anybody? Let me know if I am. High resolution pix HERE Audioboo report HERE This year’s President’s Project will take place on Saturday, August 10th, led by our club President Tony Walkin. We will assist Ballinrobe Tidy Towns in two tasks: 1. Painting of a portion of the wall in the Car Park 2. Clean-up of the Library. All help welcome. If you can bring a yard brush, or a paint brush, please do. To confirm your availability, contact Tony Walkin Snr on 087 930 8444. Assemble in the Library at 9.30am. It will take about two hours in total.

WEEKEND UPDATES: We will do a number of Audioboos over the weekend, and update them in the first list below (or you can go direct to our Audioboo page which will be even more up to date). Text updates are below. Here’s Niall Murphy, vice-president of Rennes GAA, being interviewed by Michael D McAndrew on Mid West Radio: [audio:http://ballinrobegaaclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Rennesgaa.mp3] Picture and video updates are HERE. These are high-resolution pictures so you can download and print if you wish. Thanks to photographers Des May, Liam Horan, Jill Murphy (Ballinrobe) and Kevin Hughes (Rennes) – and if you have pix, please forward them to secretary.ballinrobe.mayo@gaa.ie and we will add them. 1. AUDIO: Liam Horan update Saturday morning 2. AUDIO: Tom Carney sets the scene Friday evening. 3. AUDIO: Saturday morning, Sean O’Connell (coach and parent) at Debut Day 4. AUDIO: Saturday morning, Alan Flannery (our chairman) at Debut Day 5. AUDIO: Saturday morning, Niall Murphy (Rennes vice-president) at Debut Day 6. AUDIO: Saturday evening, Niall Murphy after-match interview MONDAY, 9am: Time to pack, time to move on. The team are flying back today. We know they enjoyed their weekend in Ballinrobe, and we certainly enjoyed having them. They were impeccably behaved, friendly to everyone they encountered, and clearly proud of their club. We wish them well, and will join them in Rennes inside the next 12 months. SUNDAY 6pm: Another great day – team went on a sight-seeing trip in north Connemara, before making their way to McHale Park where they saw Mayo defeat Roscommon in the Connacht SFC semi-final. They were featured in the match programme announced over the public address. SUNDAY, 2.01am: Alan Flannery, chairman, has confirmed we are travelling to Rennes in March 2014. And if Alan says it, it happens. Even at 2.01am. SATURDAY, 23.259 (we are knocking the last little bit out of this day): Great night in O’Malley’s. Both clubs exchanged presentations. Kevin Hughes (Armagh/Ormaw) named as Top Tourist. Alan Flannery, Kevin McDonnell and Niall Murphy all spoke. Promises are made to travel to Rennes: Ballinrobe GAA club is adamant it will travel. Start saving the few quid now. Loads of photos: see link above. Jill Murphy has been appointed Official Trip Photographer. She is adamant she will not charge a fee. That’s the spirit we like! Allez le rouges, allez les Robe! This trip has been declared an extraordinary success. Ken Murphy has agreed to sponsor the trip. SATURDAY, 13.47pm: Great morning. The Rennes players were guests at our Debut Day for the U8s. Referees, linesmen, coaches, you name it: and we had a huge turnout of children. This is a very special day for the club as we send another generation of young footballers out in the club colours.  The Rennes group got to meet and chat at some length with Donal Vaughan, our Ballinrobe and Mayo footballer, who lines out tomorrow v Roscommon. After that it was down to the new Ballinrobe Market (which is a fantastic success on this beautiful day) and who dropped in but An Taoiseach Enda Kenny (he’s our Prime Minister) and he talked to the lads about the team. Enda played a lot of football in his time and his father Henry was on the Mayo team that won the county’s first All-Ireland senior title in 1936. The players got a lovely photo with him. Thanks to photographer John Daly who set the shot up lovely on the public art piece (the giant books) outside the library. Photos, videos and audio from the trip are being added HERE today, tomorrow and over the coming days. Next up is the game v Ballinrobe juniors at 6pm. Just got a call from Fergal O’Malley saying he is putting up a top prize for a raffle in aid of the club at the barbecue, so thanks very much to Fergal for that.   SATURDAY 9.30am: Donal McCormack (of Donal McCormack Design – Donal is also our club’s Community Officer, see below) has just been onto me to say he will kindly sponsor un Tourist Magnifique Award, to be picked tonight at the barbecue. I hasten to add that only members of Rennes GAA club can enter. we will devise a voting procedure as the day goes on. More anon.   SATURDAY 8.53am: So, Rennes GAA are officially in town. We can confirm, yes, they’re in town. Mucho gracias to Tom Carney who put them through an excellent training session in Flanagan Park last night, despite the torrential rain. Of course, Tom had an ulterior motive: to slow them down before tonight’s clash with our junior team. Later they repaired to the home of Ann-Marie and Ken Murphy for some food and refreshments. We sent a dedicated reconnaissance team to this gathering and we can confirm that they are in good form, and looking forward to their mission. But they were early to bed and today will be at our guest coaches, referees and motivators at our Debut Day for the U8s at 10.30am, followed by a trip to the town’s new market at the library. At 6pm, this evening they play our juniors. Afterwards, there will be a barbecue and video showing of this game, plus the 2013 O’Mara Cup final between Ballinrobe and the Neale. Do come out at some point today or this evening to meet our visitors, led by their vice-president, Niall Murphy, son of Ann-Marie and Ken, brother of Harry (a distinguished wearer of the club jersey who now plays for Fulham Irish in London – plus he’s home for the weekend too) and Jill. Niall played for Ballinrobe for many years before relocating to Rennes. Tomorrow, they will attend Mayo v Roscommon in McHale Park – watch out for the write-up on them in the match programme. Plus here’s the souvenir programme for the weekend, with thanks to our Community Officer Donal McCormack for producing this excellent keepsake of what is shaping up to be a memorable weekend. It’s a big weekend for the club on many fronts, so let’s all get out in our

Led by our very own Niall Murphy, a team from Rennes GAA will visit Ballinrobe on the weekend of June 14-16th. On the Saturday, they hope to play a Ballinrobe selection featuring junior and senior players. More on Rennes GAA HERE Listen here to Niall’s St Stephen’s Day interview with us HERE Niall’s group will stay in local B&Bs. More anon. We will roll out the carpet to welcome them. We are also hoping that the Rennes players will do some guest coaching at our Skills Academy on the Saturday morning (9.30). Donal McCormack, our Community Officer, is putting together a number of events for that weekend. They will attend the Mayo v Roscommon game in McHale Park, Castlebar, on Sunday, June 16th. Rennes pen-pictures can be viewed HERE Rennes pen-pictures can be viewed HERE

Any club member or supporter out there who’s interested in developing their skills? You can be any age. As you may know, the club has a very active publicity wing, and we are now looking to add an additional person or two to our ‘Audioboo team’. Listen to some Audioboos HERE If you’d like to get involved, contact Liam Horan secretary.ballinrobe.mayo@gaa.ie This could be a great addition to your CV, and full training will be provided.

Congrats to the senior team who won the O’Mara Cup tonight – beating The Neale in a very entertaining final in Cong, 1-12 to 0-11. Full-time and half-time audioboo reports are HERE (we hasten to add, by the way, that the audioboo from Mellotte’s, The Neale, on the way home was born not out of triumphalism, but out of necessity – there’s a wi-fi network there so we could be sure of a successful upload of the file.) Shane Biggins (who unfortunately had to go off injured, hopefully he will be okay soon – he has suffered enough on the injury front) accepted the cup from Ger McHugh, Chairman, South Mayo GAA board. Well done to the Neale for their excellent hosting of the final. I’m sure they are disappointed tonight and we wish them the very best in this year’s Mayo intermediate league and championship. HERE are some pictures from what was a good night in the club’s history – by the way, those are high resolution pix so you can download and print (someone tell Margaret Killeen and Marian Macken that, please!) Great to see so many supporters out there and family members. To download the pix, just select the pix you want and hit download on the top right. You don’t need to open a Dropbox account. Nothing quite like winning. Hopefully more to follow. And a perfect engagement present for our ‘keeper Paul Tiernan and Orla Kavanagh, who announced their intentions last night. And not forgetting wing-back/forward Ruairi Keane who got engaged to Deirdre O’Malley (sister of our wing-back extraordinaire James O’Malley) just last week. Love is truly in the air. Sounds like we can’t but have a party tonight! An Rób abu. By the way, tomorrow night the video of the game will be shown in O’Malley’s Bar, Glebe St, at 9o’c. Good to see one of our great players of recent times, Sean Burke, in Cong tonight, and also at the celebrations. Sean is now domiciled in Australia. It’d be great to see him in the club colours again. We also have Declan and Enda Reilly in Australia. I presume they are watching events closely. They generally don’t miss a trick from home. Great men – their brother Felim, playing at corner-back, represented the family well tonight, as always. A good few of The Neale crew turned up in O’Malley’s tonight. Fair play. They were bitterly disappointed but they are a team on the ‘up’, particularly if you look at their under-age record in recent years. The game was played in a very sporting manner throughout.

We defeated Garrymore by 1-9 to 0-10 in the O’Mara Cup yesterday, listen to full report in our Audioboos section of this site. Next Sunday, at 2.30pm, we are at away to Shrule-Glencorrib in the second round of the O’Mara Cup. Referee is Johnny Burke, Hollymount-Carramore. Please note, the game will take place in Glencorrib, and not Shrule as we reported earlier in the week. And the time is 2.30pm, and not 12noon – the game has been changed as a mark of respect to the late Jim Kierans, whose funeral Mass takes place at 11.30am in St Mary’s Church, Ballinrobe. Full Mayo GAA fixtures for the week are here: Mayo GAA Fixtures Feb. 12-24 2013

Ballinrobe GAA club featured on yesterday’s (Sunday’s) AIB Club Slot on Mid West Radio. The club reps were chairman Alan Flannery, Bord na nOg secretary Tom Carney and assistant secretary of the club Kevin Murphy. Full recording below – and well done to the three lads, they did a great job. [audio:http://ballinrobegaaclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/bgaa_mid_west_03_02_13.mp3]

CONGRATS: Well done Alan Murphy on the two major awards you received in Westport on Saturday night last. He certainly did the club proud. And we wish Alan and Lorraine the very best on December 30th, when they get married. Luckily, he will be available for the St Stephen’s Day game (see belowJ) More on Alan’s successes HERE THE PULL: The club is promoting the play The Pull in Ballinrobe Community School on Friday, December 28th, at 7.30pm. Tickets cost €10 each. This is a big night out to celebrate the end of 2012 and there will be a post-show get-together in McGreal’s Bar, Abbey St, afterwards. We have assembled a team of ‘power sellers’ who have tickets – you can find out who they are here, and more details on The Pull HERE. The Pull (written and, dare we say it, ‘starring’ Liam Horan and John Corless) is loosely based on our own club truck pull a year and a half ago, which you can also watch on video HERE This event is a major fund-raiser for the club, so all support is welcome. Any member who can sell tickets can contact John Culhane (treasurer), Alan Flannery (chairman) or Donal McCormack (community officer). ST STEPHEN’S DAY GAME: It’s the clash of the Titans, the one they all want to see, the Ballinrobe GAA Club St Stephen’s Day game. More detail are available HERE. The game is at 1.30pm, and there’s video analysis afterwards in Art’s Bar. REPORTS & RESULTS: You can listen to reports of virtually all of our competitive games in 2012 here: http://bit.ly/Hts42v. We have some other boos that are not part of our Report sequence – you can listen to those here. CLUB COMMUNICATION POINTS: You can now follow club news on a number of social media platforms: i.      Public Folder – https://www.dropbox.com/sh/e4enieii5w966gk/CELRpI4frY ii.      Twitter – @ballinrobegaa iii.      Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/BallinrobeGAAFanPage iv.      Audioboo – http://audioboo.fm/BallinrobeGAA v.      Google Calendar – access this via our club website, or through our email for this Calendar, ballinrobegaaclub@gmail.com.  Overall, the club site – www.ballinrobegaaclub.com – is maintained up to date so it’s a good place to look for news.

Congratulations to Alan Murphy on being named in the Mayo News Club Stars team tonight – check out our AUDIOBOOS for more details: This caps a wonderful year for Alan which saw him terrorise defences all over Mayo – even earning a call-up to the Mayo squad. Lorraine and Alan get married on December 30th. A fitting way to finish a memorable 2012. The club wishes them every happiness on their big day and in the future.