A fluid border of the mind

Gerry McLoughlin puts his finger on it: "In the past there was never a great rivalry, because, before the breakthrough, Tipperary wouldn't have reckoned Clare at all, and to be honest, people over here knew they were going to be beaten but would be hoping it wasn't going to be by a large amount."

A Killaloe man, he's talking about hurling relationships on the frontier between Clare and Tipperary. A bridge across the Shannon connects Ballina in Tipperary with Killaloe in Clare. This week, the villages eye up one another in the knowledge that the Liam McCarthy Cup will be spending the next year on either side of this bridge.

Two years ago, when the same trophy made its first trip to Clare, the McLoughlin family was left to mind it the night it visited Killaloe. As word percolated around the village, neighbours, including one man - "Up he got on his sticks and over across the road" - who forsook his doctor's waiting room, arrived to be photographed with the distinguished guest.

This week, the colours are out in both villages. To complicate matters, just beside the bridge on the Clare side, the Anchor Inn is festooned in green and red. Killaloe's colours are red and yellow, Ballina's blue and white: the explanation is that landlord Jim Benson is from Mayo and will not be able to rest easy until the end of the month's football final is settled.

Smith-O'Brien's, the club in Killaloe, took the first Clare county title, but is nowadays a junior A side, whereas Ballina, across the water, is intermediate. They get on well, says McLoughlin, and provide each other with frequent challenge matches.

"They even amalgamated as a senior team for a tournament," he says, "and fielded the pick of both clubs. It was a mighty team. But they needed special permission from the Munster council."

Facilities in the clubs are impressive, with tidy pitches and dressing rooms in both and a squash court in Ballina.

Inevitably, there has been much cross-pollination, with Clare people marrying and moving over at much the same rate that their Tipp counterparts make the reverse journey across the bridge.

Children are raised as they are born - despite occasional parental programming.

"I saw two little lads born and reared up the road," says McLoughlin, "who had hurled for school and club in Clare going round saying, `I'm John Leahy, I'm Michael Cleary, I'm Declan Ryan'. Some parents kind of brainwash their kids - but the same thing in reverse would go for over in Ballina."

Neither club has produced big names on the inter-county scene, but Lions hooker Keith Wood hurled under-age for Killaloe, as did his Ireland and Munster team-mate Anthony Foley.

A quirk of ecclesiastical administration means that the two villages aren't even in the same diocese. The diocese of Killaloe is named after the village, whereas Ballina is part of Cashel and Emly - it is the only place in the area into which the archdiocese juts.

Both dioceses are well-connected. Archbishop Clifford of Cashel is patron of the GAA, whereas Bishop Willie Walsh of Killaloe was, until three years ago, a selector on the Clare team.

The many Tipperary faithful within the Killaloe dioceses can take solace from the fact that the Clareman has the right pastoral experience to comfort grieving hurling followers, and by all accounts performed the task humanely for his Offaly flock after the 1995 final.