The late Eileen Fallon raised a whole village
The late Eileen Fallon was such an inspiration to the youth of St. Dominic's GAA Club.
A few days after we won the Connacht final in 2010, a card arrived in the post. A simple message to say congratulations and how proud they were. It was from Tommy and Eileen Fallon, or, to give them their proper titles, Mr and Mrs Dominic’s.
That was typical of them. A few such cards over the years punctuated the biggest moments in my footballing career.
They’re neighbours of ours at home. One of their daughters, Maria, was in national school about the same time as me and I played football for years with the two lads, Damian and Conor.
If ever there was a house steeped in everything to do with St. Dominic’s GAA, it’s the Fallon household — football, hurling, camogie, Scór. Not only have they all taken part over the years, they’ve been driving forces.
Eileen has been particularly synonymous with Scór in the club for well over a generation. Set dancing, figure dancing, singing, recitation, novelty acts — Eileen was the ball of energy and enthusiasm driving it all.
St. Dominic’s is the most successful Scór club in Connacht. We can lay claim to eight All-Ireland titles. These successes can be traced back to Eileen’s inspiration.
In 2023, GAA President Larry McCarthy presented Eileen with the national Scór award for Outstanding Long Service.
It wasn’t about the prizes though. It was about the outstanding social impact she had on countless youth in our parish. She coached and encouraged, cajoled and inspired.
If you couldn’t dance, she’d put you in a ballad group. If you couldn’t sing, she’d get you into instrumental music. If you couldn’t play an instrument ,she’d put you into Recitation or a Novelty Act. Or, in my case, when I could do none of the above, she got me into Question Time.
My sister was part of a group who were asked to perform at a local wedding years ago on foot of Scór successes in singing and dancing. The Straw Boys group was born from this.
Eileen led this merry group to performances all over the country, across the water and even orchestrated some TV appearances. She also oversaw the production of a musical album, “Below in Knockcroghery”, to raise funds for the parish’s two priests on the Missions in South America.
Looking back, it's impossible to put a value on her contribution to the upbringing of the youth in St. Dominic’s, except to say it was priceless.
Mrs Dominic’s was a mentor in the truest sense of the word. She brought out the best in people time and time again. The focus wasn’t on winning, but on doing your best. It was on being part of a team and representing the parish with pride. Nothing was impossible. Eileen didn’t do negativity.
Most of my experience with Eileen came through her unwavering support on the football pitch. Once she was in your corner, she’d back you to the hilt. Particularly at Roscommon games, if I had a bad performance, God help anyone in the stand who tried to slate me with Eileen nearby!
I don’t know how she’d have fared out if she found herself on the sideline for St. Dominic’s with these new rules in the football stamping out verbal remonstrations with the referee. She was always vociferous in her support.
Afterwards, on the bad days, she’d always be able to pick out the positives to focus on and on the good days, well, she’d beam with an infectious pride.
News of her passing came as a jolt last week. I knew her health hadn’t been the best in the last couple of years but it still caught me off guard.
Life does that to us though, doesn’t it? A smack of reality in the face just when we’re consumed by hundreds of ultimately not-that-important things we’re dealing with from on a daily basis.
It can get the mind to start reassessing what we are doing. The question of what is a life well-lived rears its head regularly enough in my thoughts. For all my thinking on it, the notion of helping others stands above all else in terms of measuring a life well-lived.
By that metric, and by any other meaningful one, Eileen lived a wonderful life. To have had such a positive impact on so many young people in our community over the years is phenomenal.
They say it takes a village to raise a child. It took one Eileen Fallon to raise a whole village.
At this stage I’m trying to hold myself back from being over-enthusiastic about this great new game. Once again on Sunday, we were treated to a thoroughly enjoyable sporting contest in the Hyde.
The signs for the Rossies are very positive. We were down a few big players but this just allowed us to showcase our strength-in-depth. We probably weren’t at our best in terms of skill execution, but still managed to post a total of 0-25, while keeping Monaghan to 2-14 — they had averaged ten points more than that in their opening two games.
We seemed to be hell-bent on getting goals in the first half. We forced a few opportunities when a handy point was the better option. Still, Monaghan only led by four points at half time, despite playing with a strong breeze.
We’re still getting used to the effect of the new scoring system but I reckoned if we could have been within seven at the break, we’d be in a good position. It played out like that in the second half. Our hunger for goals seemed to have abated and lads took a number of handy scores along with some great doubles by Diarmuid Murtagh and one from Conor Cox.
I feel our attacking style is improving. We are punching holes more regularly. At times in the first half, we went into crowded areas too often but, in general, there was good cut and thrust to our forward play.
Our kickout structure looked better too. I think we were helped by having just one clear focal point in Keith Doyle for kickouts. Even if he didn’t win it, he got a first touch on the ball most times and we looked sharp on the breaking ball.
I really liked the look of the full-back line too. John McManus looked really comfortable at full back — a real old-school type of number 3.
Colm Neary had deservedly taken a lot of plaudits for his performances in the opening couple of games, but Pearse Frost has been looking equally as impressive and continued that on Sunday.
Niall Higgins was one of our best performers last year. Suddenly, we seem to have a good stock of markers. This is very welcome as the new game now requires at least three really good one-on-one defenders.
Conor Hand is an interesting one for me. When the game opened up in the second half he was excellent at exploiting gaps and reeled off a few points at ease. I said this last year and I’m still thinking it — he’d be a superb attacking weapon from wing-back.
I see Diarmuid Murtagh was given the TG4 Man of the Match award. He was superb once again and while it’s hard to argue against picking the man who kicked 0-12, I’ll try.
I thought Keith Doyle was superb throughout. It was his best performance in a Roscommon jersey yet. His fielding was terrific and even when he wasn’t catching it he was still the one getting the dominant touch. He seemed to grow in confidence as the game wore on and contributed more and more in terms of setting up attacks.
Much like the emergence of a strong full-back line, Keith’s performance is a huge boost for the prospects of this team. Eddie Nolan has had a good start to the league too. With the return to long, contested kickouts, the importance of finding a strong midfield partnership is massive.
Yes, it’s still early days in the 2025 season, but so far, so good.
