While Galway prepares to cheer on its football heroes in the All-Ireland Final later this month, poor old Roscomon is back once more in the obscurity to which we shall never become accustomed. We almost won the Connacht football title again this year. To paraphrase John Pake Casserly, a neighbour in Ballaghaderreen, "it took Galway two days and a half-hour" to beat us. He first used the phrase a few years ago when, after another drawn final which went to extra time in a replay, Roscommon were beaten by Mayo.
Poor, dear old Ros. Or Rosgommon, as true saffron-and-blue locals refer to it. It is so long since we won an all-Ireland. Fifty-four bleedin years. People like me have absolutely no idea what it is like to belong to a county which has won the Sam Maguire. There is another generation behind us for whom 1944 is pre-history.
The nearest we came to such ecstasy in my memory was in 1980. Then, on a September Sunday afternoon in Croke Park, it looked as if we had Kerry racing for the Boggeragh mountains. But, to paraphrase the late King George V, "bugger Boggeragh."
It is said that when the king was dying in 1936 a courtier recommended he spend some time in the dreary resort of Bognor Regis. "Bugger Bognor," was the reply - allegedly his last words. Anyhow, Kerry turned round and beat the blazes out of us. Well, not quite, but a defeat is a defeat is a defeat.
Cinderella county
Ours is the Cinderella county of Connacht and the only one entirely inland. Our four stepsisters are full of themselves, with their hems dipping to the sea, their heads in mountainy air, and plunging necklines between such as would leave any plainsman breathless. But ours is a plain county, flat in all the wrong places.
Our stepmother Kathleen (one of the Houlihan's from hell) couldn't care less about us. Like Mrs Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, she makes a big song and dance about "my five girls". She even went to Brussels to get help to set us up. "What am I to do?", she pleaded. They gave her money, most of which she spent on herself, sparing a little for her four daughters while Cinderella got nothing but the back of her hand.
We're used to that in Roscommon. But do we complain? Do we whinge? Do we moan? Yes. Yes. And yes. Does it matter? No. Will we stop? No. Because if we can't have a share in the fun we will do our damnedest to spoil it for everyone else. We are, after all, the bleeding county of Ireland. All our young people just flow away. Someone has to pay.
But we've had enough. We are fighting back. We looked in a mirror recently and saw how beautiful we are. Lovely Lough Key, the graceful river Shannon, placid Lough Ree, rugged Curlieu mountains, the great plains of Tulsk, majestic Rathcroghan, ancient Lough Gara.
People in our small towns are on their hind legs too. Like those in Elphin, who have restored an 18th-century windmill and turned it into a tourist attraction. And now they are planning a model railway village, the LITTLELPH (gettit?) Model Railway Village and Theme Park project. Some say it's like building a lighthouse in a bog, but what a tourist attraction that would be!
There is Strokestown House with its famine museum, the castle and restored gaol in Roscommon town, the extraordinary King House in Boyle, Clonalis House in Castlerea, and . . .Loughglynn.
Loughglynn, God help us. They've revived the carnival there. At the August bank holiday weekend and after 25 years they brought back the marquee, the Bad Ass Buggy Band, great crowds, the rain, and John Mangan as steward. Despite all, it was a great success. Frenchpark has its festival, Keadue has its Carolan, Tulsk its fair day, and Boyle its arts festival. Sure where would you be going?
James Dillon
Well, Ballaghaderreen in July for instance. Ah yes. The great traditional music of Eigse de hIde, the Douglas Hyde summer school, the festival on the street. There the town was in July this year all decked out in its saffron-and-blue county colours. On the Square, the vacant premises of the Monduff general store carried the great letters "UP ROSCOMMON" in blue against yellow, and in the background was that loud whirring noise as the former Fine Gael leader James Dillon spun in his grave down the road. For the Dillon family once owned Monduff; and James Dillon always gave his address as "Ballaghaderreen, Co Mayo" - forgetting that one of the people who most favoured the town moving into Co Roscommon (in 1898, when local government boundaries were redrawn) was his own father John Dillon, leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party. Rates were lower in Roscommon.
Last year the town was all decked out in Mayo flags, with Brian Kelly's premises on Main Street carrying the message "Last one out, switch off the lights." We were on the losing side then too. But Ballaghaderreen is still the home of champions. There is Desmond Keegan, a talented young athlete who brought honour to the town and its remarkable handball club last year by winning the world championship title for 15-year-olds in Winnepeg, Canada.
Along with Declan Hough he also won the under-16s doubles all-Ireland Colleges final for St Nathy's College in the town last year and the senior singles grade in the same competition.
Desmond and Declan are just two of the young handballers who brought 29 all-Ireland medals to the town in 1997. It was a worthy follow-on for the club which won the (all-Ireland) Waterford Crystal Club of the Year Award in 1996. Other local heros last year were Paul Flynn, who won the European one-wall open singles, and the bastion of the handball club, John Gaffney, who was selected as Irish junior team manager for the United States Handball Association nationals last year.
Another champion
It is by no means an all-male success story either. Emer Tansey and Aoife Maoloney won the under-14 all-Ireland last year, while Catriona Colleran is this year's all-Ireland under-17 champion.
They and the town owe so much to John Gaffney, Father Martin Jennings, Eileen Fannon and Tom Flannery who, along with a single-minded and dedicated committee, have produced all our champions. There is another champion in the town too. As a football manager John O'Mahony has brought Connacht football titles to Mayo, Leitrim, and this year to Galway. No one has ever done the like before. Now he stands on the brink of an all-Ireland victory.
Who knows? He may yet turn out to be Roscommon's Prince Charming. He might find that the magic glass football boot he carries around with him fits our Cinderella's foot perfectly. Then the team might go off to do what has been so elusive for so long, and bring Sam west to see old Shannon's face again. No harm in dreaming.