IAFC: Dual mandate suiting Ballinora 

James Lordan began 2025 almost as far from Ballinora as it’s possible to be – he hopes that a visit to SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh can be worked in before the year is out.

In April, Lordan returned from a year spent in Australia, first in Sydney before a few months in the pro shop of a golf club in the northern coastal town of Port Douglas.

Timing was against him in a GAA sense. “When I got to Sydney, the GAA season was kind of winding down,” Lordan says, “and then when I took off for Port Douglas in February, there was no GAA there!”

Thankfully, since his return, there has been no shortage of activity in the green and red of his native club. Just last weekend, Ballinora secured a big win over Inniscarra in the Muskerry JAHC semi-final, setting up a meeting with Grenagh as they chase a fifth straight divisional title.

Before that, there is Sunday’s mid-Cork derby at the last-four stage of the McCarthy Insurance Group IAFC, with Ballinora the opposition in Ovens. With so much crossover between codes, one feeds off the other.

“Absolutely,” he says, “we've been playing now for, I don't know how many weeks straight – there were four group games in the hurling.

“It feeds into the next week, the momentum from one to the other.”

While there has been plenty of success for the hurlers, in football Ballinora have been battling to preserve their status in recent years. Even so, doing that has helped to build spirit.

“We haven't had many big wins,” Lordan says, “I suppose the biggest win we've had in the last few years in the football was probably a relegation game two years ago.

“You take a lot away from it, like it definitely galvanised the group, I think,” he says.

“That was a, like, that year we were very unlucky – I think we lost three of our group games, but I think our scoring difference was minus seven.

“We had to play Glenville and we just scraped through it. I think it said a lot about the team, to be honest, and I think we've definitely built and we were unlucky not to get out of the group last year.”

Having emerged this time, victory over Gabriel Rangers in the quarter-finals a couple of weeks ago has brought them to this stage, against the side that won last year’s Premier JFC.

“Kilmurry are obviously the fancied team, they’ve won a couple of counties over the last few years,” Lordan says.

“We haven't played each other much over the last couple of years. We would have played them a lot underage and and we played them in the league this year – they gave us a good clipping.

“Hopefully we can get a different result this time.”