Hurling and Football in Ardfinnan: Two Codes, Two Clubs, One Parish
In Ardfinnan the two great Gaelic games are played by two neighbouring clubs, three miles apart, drawing on the same families and the same Suir valley.
Tipperary is a hurling county first and foremost. It is also a county with a proud football tradition, especially in the south, and Ardfinnan sits exactly where the two meet. The parish does not have one club that plays both codes. It has two clubs, and understanding how they fit together explains a good deal about local sport.
Two clubs, two codes
Ardfinnan GAA plays Gaelic football only. The club was formed in 1910 and, according to Wikipedia’s summary of its history, draws on the village and the neighbouring parishes of Grange and Ballybacon. (Its full story is told in Ardfinnan GAA: The Story of the Parish Club.)
Ballybacon–Grange GAA is the hurling club. Wikipedia gives its home as Goatenbridge, about three miles from Ardfinnan, and lists it as competing in the South division at Intermediate level in county hurling. Ballybacon–Grange on Wikipedia The Tipperary GAA’s own club profile of Ardfinnan notes that Ballybacon-Grange was formed in the late 1920s, and the two sources differ by a year on the exact date (1927 or 1928), so it is safest to say simply that the hurling club was founded within two decades of the football club.
The same Wikipedia entry describes the relationship as a “fraternal co-existence” and adds that some Ballybacon–Grange hurlers also play football with Ardfinnan. In other words, the split is organisational, not social. A young player in the parish can, and often does, try both.
What each club has won
Each club’s record reflects its own code.
On the football side, Ardfinnan have won the Tipperary Senior Football Championship eight times: 1935, 1939, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1970, 1974 and 2005. They have also won the South senior title on ten occasions, the most recent in 2018, when they reached the county final and lost to Moyle Rovers. Wikipedia
On the hurling side, Ballybacon–Grange’s listed honours include the South Tipperary Senior Hurling Championship in 1968, and the South Intermediate Hurling title fourteen times, between 1966 and 2019. They also won the Tipperary Junior A Hurling Championship in 2017. Wikipedia
Those are the documented figures. If you want to quote them, check the club’s own roll of honour for any season after those pages were last updated.
The South division
Both clubs compete in the South division of Tipperary GAA, one of the divisions into which the county organises its club championships. Ardfinnan’s honours list shows the link between the two levels: the South senior title and the county senior title were won in the same years in 1935, 1939, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1974, and a South title in 2018 was followed by a county final.
Wikipedia’s account of the 2005 and 2018 campaigns names two opponents who stand out: Loughmore-Castleiney, beaten in the 2005 county final in Cashel and again in the 2018 semi-final, and Moyle Rovers, who won the 2018 final. Beyond Tipperary, Ardfinnan faced Cork’s Nemo Rangers in the 2005 Munster club quarter-final, played in Ardfinnan on 13 November. Rivalry in the sense of local feeling is something only the people involved can describe, and we have not tried to invent it here.
Underage: where it all starts
Both codes depend on juvenile players. The Tipperary GAA profile says Ardfinnan’s juvenile club has run since the 1960s, that a Juvenile Committee was set up in 1980 to look after U12, U14 and U16 teams, and that numbers dipped about a decade before the article was written, then recovered. The club credits school coaching and the Astro pitch opened in 2018 for the recovery, and now fields two or three teams in each age group. Tipperary GAA
In a small parish that matters. Children who might otherwise be pulled towards a town club stay local, and the ones who like hurling and football both get to play them.
A county with room for both
Publicly documented names show how closely the codes are linked. Wikipedia’s list of notable Ardfinnan players names Michael “Babs” Keating, Brendan Cummins, Willie Barrett and Michael Phelan among others, with Brendan Cummins and Michael Phelan each having their own Wikipedia biographies. Brendan Cummins played his club hurling with the neighbouring Ballybacon–Grange side, and the list as a whole is a reminder that a Suir valley parish can produce players for Tipperary in either game.
Watching a game
If you would like to see the sport rather than read about it, the football club’s pitch is on the Clonmel road just outside the village; see Ardfinnan GAA and the Heart of the Parish for the ground itself. Fixtures are published by Tipperary GAA and by the clubs, and they change from week to week, so check before you travel. For more from this section, see the GAA pages of the Journal.