Colum Cromwell and the geographical problems facing Ballinabrackey. Have you ever heard of Father Callary? Perhaps not. He was Parish Priest of Ballinabrackey back in the 1940s -50s and he was instrumental in having something approved by Leinster Council GAA which has been of major significance. Today nearly 50 years on it is still causing all kinds of problems and arguments along the Meath-Offaly border. Not many people realise that Meath and Offaly actually touch one another. Well they do! But only over a short narrow border which happens to be where the Ballinabrackey parish exists. Most of the parish is in Co Meath but a small portion is geographically in Co Offaly. So back in 1951 or thereabouts the bold Fr Callary decided that he wasn't going to tolerate his parish being divided so he set the wheels in motion to have the whole of Ballinabrackey assigned as Co Meath for GAA purposes. Not many can now remember whether there was much objection to the move at the time but the pertinent points seems to have been that there was no club in existence in the small portion of the parish which jutted into Offaly. Within a short few years the decision was to have a major effect as that particular little area produced two outstanding footballers Kevin McNamee and Peter Moore. I am not too sure which side of the border Peter Moore's father came from originally but Paddy Moore was a 200% Meath man so perhaps he had just crossed over during his lifetime. In any event Peter Moore was also a true blue (or should it be green) Meathman as himself and McNamee starred for Meath over the period 1958-1970. Kevin won one Leinster Medal in '64 and also a Railway Cup medal in 1962 while Peter won four Leinsters '64, '66 '67 and '70 and of course was at midfield when the Royals won the All-Ireland in 1967. Ballinabrackey enjoyed their own bit of success every few years and won the Junior Championship on three occasions 1972, 1977 and 1985. In Meath there was never any animosity to the 'Bracks' being allowed that little bit of Offaly - in fact very few knew about it and it doesn't seem to have caused any problems in the Ui Fhaile either. That is until sometime in the late 1980s somebody decided to start a club in Clonmore, a townland in that same area already referred to and requested affiliation in Offaly. Clonmore, once affiliated, set wheels in motion to get the piece of Offaly back and then as Con Houlihan would say - All Heaven broke loose. Unfortunately Fr Callary was now long gone to his eternal reward but Ballinabrackey resisted fiercely. After much to-ing and fro-ing Leinster Council gave back the territory, with the proviso that Ballinabrackey could retain any players that had already commenced to play for them. This was not too acceptable for a very good reason. It was going to split families e.g Johnny aged 12 was already playing for the 'Bracks but brother Paddy aged 8 would have to play for Clonmore when he grew older. This was further complicated by the fact that Clonmore had no juvenile team but had an affiliation with neighbours Rhode (where the famous Iron Man, Paddy McCormack was born and reared). Eventually it was decided not to split families and allow the younger lads to follow their brothers. At present it would appear the problem is still there mainly in relation to juveniles but juveniles grow into adults and Clonmore still want the real border restored. Many attempts have been made to get a full agreement down on paper which would be acceptable to everyone, once and for all. Leinster Council sub-committees have tried hard but there is always that extra exception when it comes to finalising the matter. The men who drew up "The Good Friday Agreement" or the people who adjudicate regularly on the territory in "The West Bank" or "The Gaza Strip" would do well to have a word with the GAA people of Ballinabrackey and Clonmore. Fr Callary has a lot of answer for but to quote Peter Moore. The parish is the very foundation of the GAA - if you break that up you have nothing at all." I'm sure the good father was of the opinion that the matter was settled forever when he departed this world but he hadn't reckoned with some of the modern day Clonmore men who see themselves as Offaly men with no affiliation to the Royal County. One point seems to be overlooked. Why not let everyone in the Clonmore area make up their own minds by giving them a choice. On the other hand perhaps that would lead to Daddy saying 'Bracks' and Junior opting for Clonmore! Bordering On Brilliance Ballinabrackey old boy Peter Moore tells Kevin Carney how he still delights in following the game he graced for so long. A natural born Dub who has been hailed as the messiah of Offaly football, Tommy Lyons knew exactly what he was doing a couple of seasons back when he approached true blue Meath citizen Peter Moore. A Royal County old boy from the sixties and seventies era, Moore is one of Offaly's most popular adopted sons. Though hailing from the Meath football outpost that is Ballinabrackey, the Bord na Mona administrator boasts a wealth of experience of Faithful County football affairs. In charge of the Offaly under 21's in 1994, '95 and '96 (they won the Leinster title in '95 only to lose to Mayo in the All-Ireland semi-final thereafter), the former dynamic Meath midfielder was just the man to mark the then rookie Offaly manager's card. After all, didn't he (like Lyons would later) prove he had the capacity to get the best out of the likes of Ciaran McManus, Cathal Daly, Roy Malone, John Kenny and Colm Quinn and hadn't he secured an all too infrequent title for Offaly, just to prove his pedigree as a manager of men and a mine of knowledge on the game of football. "I didn't really know Tommy Lyons then and I still don't know him too well now, and while I sort of pointed him in the right direction generally, he had to get to know the lie of the land and the players for himself," Peter averred. Now living in Mucklagh, some three miles from Tullamore, Moore makes for an interviewer's delight. Eloquent, generous with his time and obviously a deep thinker about the game he once graced (for the most part around the middle of the field), with all the elegance of a gazelle, the born and reared Ballinabrackey gael understandably rates the aforementioned Offaly under 21 team of '95 as the best crew he has ever had under his wing and their success as the most memorable of his managerial career. But what of his playing career; what does he rate as his most memorable time in the game as a midfielder par excellence? "The junior title success with Ballinabrackey in 1972 was easily the highlight of my career on the club front. "We beat Dunsany in the final and even though we were probably the favourites going into the game, the victory was very satisfying because the club had fallen at the last hurdle on many occasions beforehand and, in fact, hadn't won the title for 46 years previously," explained Peter who was joined on the '72 all-conquering club team by his brothers Paddy and John. A third brother, Dan would have also taken his place on the 1972 side only for the fact that he was a member of the clergy and was based abroad at that time. A man with things football very much in his grain, Peter's people were all deeply involved in the GAA around Ballinabrackey. His father and an uncle, significantly, were two of four Moores who had played key roles in fashioning Ballinabrackey's previous equivalent title success in 1926. A place on the bench for Meath minors championship campaign of 1957 was a fairly inauspicious beginning to Peter Moore's county career. However, like so many other distinguished footballers before, and after him, he was a late starter and when, with the passing of time, his innate skills became enriched by experience and craft, he was regarded as just about as formidable a midfielder as existed over the course of the sixties. In fairness though, he had a good role model in the form of his step brother Eddie Weir. Eddie, a county junior with Meath in the fifties and a Ballinabrackey stalwart to boot, has been a GAA fan over 50 years and still never misses a match. In 1959, Peter played both junior and senior county football for Meath. For someone coming from a junior club and a club from the deep south of the county at that, the step up to the county stage was a rare 'oul culture shock for the six feet, two inch and 12 stone plus midfield dynamo. "To be honest, I did feel out of it somewhat when I joined the county scene at first. "I found the environment completely different from that to which I was used to in Ballinabrackey and it was pretty intimidating. "Coming from our end of the county, it was difficult to feel at home in company which I wasn't at all familiar with and it took me a few years to settle. "With the advert of players like Peter Darby from Trim and Bertie Cunningham of Ballivor, things became a lot cosier for me but, you see, there wasn't a lot of players on the county team from south Meath during the sixties. That's just the way it was," Peter recalled. An out and out midfielder, as they say in the GAA vernacular down around Ballinabrackey, Ballinascreen, Ballyboden and everywhere else besides, Peter went on to make a big impression as a strapping midfielder. Blessed with a good engine and a fine pair of hands, he was in good company on the Meath senior side and had to be at his very best to keep his place on a team which could also call on the likes of Navan O'Mahony's star Seamus Clynch and Jimmy Halpin from the now defunct Millbrook to buttress centre field. Arguably the type of player a body could transplant into the modern football scene with some ease, Peter graduated over the course of his time with Meath to win one All-Ireland medal and four Leinster senior championship medals to add to his 1957 provincial minor souvenir. As regards the brighter days with Meath seniors, Peter, unhesitantly, singles out the All-Ireland senior triumph of 1967 as the highlight of his inter county career. Having made his senior county debut in a tournament match in Castlebellingham in 1959 against Louth (he marked would be tourism chief Dan O'Neill in the game), Ballinabrackey's best was a seasoned, wily campaigner by the time he faced up to the Rebel County in '67. He was also a veteran of the 1966 All-Ireland final, a final which saw the Leinster champions lose out to Galway. Ironically, the general view of many Meath and non-Meath punters in those days was that Moore's performance in the '66 decider was much superior to that which he put in 12 months later. "I wouldn't argue with that point of view. The win in 1967 holds good and bad memories for me in that while the team won, I felt that I hadn't performed as well as I should have done. "I was down to mark Cork's Mick Burke in the final and before the game, our manager Peter McDermott had given me a dossier on him. "However, about ten minutes into the game Burke had to go off injured and from there on I didn't seem to be able to re-adjust my game. "I remember I felt very sorry for my family that day. Even though I had an All-Ireland medal in my pocket, I felt as if I had let a lot of people down because of how poorly I played on the day," the altogether modest Moore opined. Treasurer of the Shamrocks club (an amalgam of Rahan and Mucklagh) for years and still very much in love with the native game, Peter underwent a major operation shortly after the 1997 All-Ireland senior final and, as such, his involvement in GAA affairs has, temporarily, been watered down a bit. "I still get a great kick out of being involved in GAA affairs and looking back, I wouldn't have changed a thing about the football I played between 1954 and '76; I enjoyed every moment of it, made a lot of friends and got great craic out of playing against the likes of Ray Carolan, Des Foley, Mick O'Connell and many more." No regrets, no tears to cry. That's former Ballinabrackey and Meath favourite Peter Moore. Tweet

Most Read Stories