Balla on song for Paddy’s Day

Ger Flanagan

TO quote a famous line, ‘there was blatant abandomness of cars’ along the streets of Balla last Saturday morning and that only means one thing in the small, picturesque town – the St Patrick’s Day Parade.
There wasn’t a curb that wasn’t mounted or a double line to be seen as the crowds flocked in in their droves to begin the festivities directly after the annual St Patrick’s Day Mass.
Excitement and colour flowed through the piercing wind that carried down Main Street as the range of floats made their way past the square.
As always, the Balla Pipe Band led the way, this year, however, minus their conductor, and long servant Mattie Dowd, who, for once, took up his place amongst the crowd. His presence was sorely missed on the big drum.
In among that same crowd was the new local superhero, Joe Moran, fresh after foiling a robbery in Corrib Oil, Castlebar the previous Wednesday. Aside from being mobbed by selfie hunters, it was the media interest he was struggling to deal with since his 15 minutes of fame.
Kim Jong-un, in typical fashion, did not let up the opportunity to show off his swanky military arsenal to the people of Balla either in what was an impressive show of power in the parade.
The Timmiss and Campbell crew pulled out no stops yet again and father and son duo, Pat and Ryan McGuire – aka Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un – were rewarded with a pint of the black stuff at the half-way mark, where they appeared to settle their differences.
Barack Obama and Osama Bin Laden were the latest duo to take part in First Dates, The Rendevouz style. The ultimate power couple. Move out of the way Brangelina, here comes Barack Osama!
Sinn Feinn’s Gerry Adams (Balla’s Shane Conway, we believe) brought his Irish training camp down ahead of the Six Nations clash with ‘the enemy’, putting Tim Lavin and co through their paces.
Whilst the big interest was the lads from TRRS Motorcycles who put on an excellent show of trial biking in the square.
They wheelied and jumped their way around the assembled obstacle course after the parade finished. Launching themselves down eight foot drops onto the back wheel, climbing near vertical mounds and doing all sorts of gravity defying stunts whilst talking the crowd through it.
Kudos to the organisers of another wonderful and fun filled parade. Judging by the childrens’ reactions they seemed to be having a ball and the big kids were enjoying themselves too.