A chara, – Feelings of nostalgia and amusement were stirred in this writer by Harry McGee’s article (Home News, September 22nd) on the dichotomous GAA loyalties of my parents’ home place. “Welcome to Ballaghaderreen, the Rockall of Gaelic football... claimed by both Mayo and Roscommon” was indeed the theme of my childhood memories of the parental banter when these two counties clashed in the many “Connacht Derbies” of the 1930s and 1940s. My father John F (Jack), born in Ballagh 16 years before John Dillon’s boundary amendment in 1898, firmly adhered to Mayo while the 1900 birth of my mother saw her in the Roscommon camp.
Jack Shouldice was considered to be the first man from Mayo to have won a Senior All-Ireland football medal, on October 3rd, 1908 in Jones Road, albeit playing for Dublin. The Dublin side, as was the custom of the time, was represented by his club Geraldines, who had won the county final. Jack’s position was “top o’ the right”, a much better description than the more prosaic modern “right corner forward”. Ironically, Dublin’s victims on a score of 1-10 to 4 points were London, into which club he had been introduced by Sam Maguire in 1903, along with membership of the IRB!
His GAA credentials were even more firmly established in November 1920 when, as Leinster council secretary and organiser of the Volunteer dependants’ fund, he was in charge of the financial arrangements for the “Bloody Sunday” match and was very fortunate to escape with his life.
Perhaps my earliest memory of Croke Park was being lifted over the stile by him in 1936 when Mayo beat Laois in the All-Ireland football final on a 4-11 to 0-5 score – their first of only three titles to date!
But, as Harry McGee concludes in the words of Ballaghaderreen postman Frank Kelly, “We all love Gaelic football. We love Mayo. We keep hoping that the day will come”. Speed the day. – Is mise,