Ballinacurra will mark centenary year by hosting east Cork final and PN Fitzgerald Cup

Last year was a memorable one for Ballinacurra; with the east Cork club winning the McCarthy Insurance Group Confined Cork Junior C Football Championship after losing at the final hurdle in 2023.

Former Cobh Ramblers striker Jake Hegarty returned to Ballinacurra GAA to score 2-7 of their 3-11 in the final win over Grange – a perfect way to end the 2024 season and kickstart their centenary celebrations in 2025.

The club may be small and solely focused soley on the game of football, but an effort is being made to rejuvenate the club from the top down. They’re starting to thrive again – and it’s great to see.

The team in green and white have a number of different events planned for the coming season, one of those being the hosting of this year’s East Cork Junior A Football Championship final.

For the first time since Carrigtwohill played Fr O’Neill’s in the 2000 decider, Ballinacurra will be the venue for an east Cork football final.

This season, the Ballinacurra footballers will be wearing a special centenary jersey for the upcoming championship, a throwback to their original 1925 jersey when the club was founded.

The club were one of the first to step up and help Sarsfields when their senior hurlers needed a venue for training. Ballinacurra are also hosting the RedFM Hurling League Division 5 clash between Erin’s Own and Castlemartyr next Saturday.

The east Cork side are looking to have their pitch officially opened, and are also currently assessing the possibility of putting together a history book to commemorate the centenary.

Dates are yet to be confirmed, but the club will also be hosting the Patrick Neville Fitzgerald Cup, a football tournament to celebrate the life of the Ballinacurra man, who was one of the founding fathers of the GAA.

A member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and a key figure in the 1867 rising, PN Fitzgerald established a sub-committee of the IRB supreme council with the aim of creating some form of amateur athletics organisation.

He became a prominent advocate for the GAA, but was actually absent for the inaugural meeting in October 1884; after being arrested without a warrant in a British intelligence operation which resulted in the seizure of several IRB documents, dubbed the ‘Paris letters’.

He was held in Sligo jail for seven months awaiting trial. When Fitzgerald was eventually put to trial in Dublin for the dual charge of treason-felony and encouraging agrarian outrage, the evidence against him was deemed inconclusive.

Following his release, large crowds gathered in Cork city to celebrate. Fitzgerald would go on to chair the 1887 GAA annual convention in Thurles. He died in 1907, at the age of 56.