The late Mick Fallon When Was as a young fella living at the top of Dunlo Hill, over looking Ballinasloe's famous Fair Green (and I still live there), Mick Fallon was in digs seven or eight houses down from me. Mrs. 'Ma' Campbell kept a lodging house in the middle of Dunlo Hill. For a few years in the mid-1940's three Galway Senior footballers lodged there. Roscommon Clann na nGael man Pat MacManus had won a Junior All-Ireland with Roscommon in 1940. Working on the railway in Ballinalsoe, he declared for Ballinalsoe and Galway and was now a star forward on the Galway team. Sean Thornton (no, not The Quiet Man Sean Thornton!) from Furbo, was an engineer in Ballinalsoe. Sean and his brother Pearse were versatile athletes on both Galway hurling and football teams. And then there was Post Office employee Mick Fallon. Out three musketeer from Dunlo Hill were on the Galway team which lost to Cork in the 1945 All-Ireland football semi-final. Mick Fallon came from Carrantryla, Dunmore - great football territory. No jobs in Dunmore, so young Mick ended up working in the Post Office in Cavan and playing football. Soon he was on the Cavan Junior football team, then the Seniors with whom he collected an Ulster Senior medal. "Best footballer I ever played against," Jack MacCullough told me. His Post Office job saw Mick transferred to Wicklow. Again, "have boots, will travel" he helped Rathnew to win the Wicklow Senior football title. Out own football selectors had now discovered his Galway football connections. Mick declared for Galway and was soon one of the stars of our county team. In 1942 Galway eliminated their arch rivals Kerry and qualified to meet Dublin in the All-Ireland final. Dublin in 1942 were basically a team of culchies masquerading as jackeens. Galway, beaten in the 1940 and 1941 finals, were hot favourites. Alas, it was not to be: Dublin 1-10, Galway 1-8. Mick's transfer was to Ballinalsoe. He declared for the local St Grellan's football club which won the County title in 1945 and lost a controversial 1946 final. He married local Ballinalsoe girl Cathleen Aherne, a niece of Mick Connaire, the famous Galway full-back in the 1930s. Mick Fallon was also an avid gardener. Call in to him and you usually got a guided tour of his back garden and you'd leave with an armful of fruit and vegetables and possibly a jar or two of Cathleen's home made jam. An active member of various organisations in Ballinasloe, a committed GAA man, and secretary for a number of years of Ballinasloe Agricultural Show Society. If you asked me to define a gentleman, I'd have said Mick Fallon: elegant, handsome. When Jane Austen created Darcy she must have been mindful of some guy like Mick Fallon. As the bible says "A virtuous man, honourable and unassuming, a good neighbour". Our sympathy to his wife Cathleen and his two daughters Ita and Miriam and son Michael, a medical doctor in England. His son James died in 1990. Ar dheis De go raibh a anam dilis. Matt Ganley Courtesy of the Tuam Herald 17 May 2007 Tweet

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