Fingal City FC?

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Originally Posted by dcfcsteve

Fingal is an artifical creation that appears to be desperately creating an image/identity for itself where one doesn't exist and alternative preferable ones do (e.g. Dublin).

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That particular area of county Dublin was known as Fingal long before the island was divided up into 32 counties. The area delineated and falling under the administration of Fingal CoCo might be an convenient administrative creation (like each of the county and city councils), but Fingal is certainly not artificial (with the exception of Sutton :) ). The mistake was to call it a 'county' council (given the 32=1 mentality of a section of the population), when 'borough' would have been more appropriate.

Incidentally, Samuel Beckett wrote an excellent short story called "Fingal" set around Howth, Feltrim and Swords in the 1930s.

There will have to be Dublin teams in the A Championship, why not Fingal. However, has anyone else heard the rumour that Kilkenny City might not be around for much longer ...

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Originally Posted by a.a.d

Have a wild guess where Clontarf is Steve.

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Wild guesses aside - as far as I'm aware it's in Dublin, not Fingal. :) Though if I'm correct it is bang on the border between the two.

That aside - even if Clontarf was the epicentre of Irish cricket, and even if the town was in Fingal not Dublin, then it would be Clontarf that was the centre of Irish cricket - not Fingal. Dundalk being a soccer town doesn't automatically make Louth a soccer county, for example.

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Originally Posted by eelmonster

That particular area of county Dublin was known as Fingal long before the island was divided up into 32 counties. The area delineated and falling under the administration of Fingal CoCo might be an convenient administrative creation (like each of the county and city councils), but Fingal is certainly not artificial (with the exception of Sutton :) ). The mistake was to call it a 'county' council (given the 32=1 mentality of a section of the population), when 'borough' would have been more appropriate.

Incidentally, Samuel Beckett wrote an excellent short story called "Fingal" set around Howth, Feltrim and Swords in the 1930s.

There will have to be Dublin teams in the A Championship, why not Fingal. However, has anyone else heard the rumour that Kilkenny City might not be around for much longer ...

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Apologies - I'm not claiming that a random collection of consonants and vowels was asembled to make Fingal :) . Just that the name of a small area north of Dublin is being used to describe a dramatically larger area to the north of Dublin.

I have no issue per se with a Fingal team looking to enter the league - bar the fact that we could do without another Dublin team, and we had a Fingal one under Home Farm Dublin City Everton Vikings anyway. My issue is with a makey-uppey County Council looking to blow tax-payers money on an ego-driven exercise in creating an identity for a 'region' that doesn't have one. The EL doesn't need such misguided vanity projects.

Give it up, Steve - there's no Most Erroneous Opinions on Subjects One Knows Nothing About section in the Guinness Book of Records, and there never will be.

I'm a Clontarf supporter myself, but it's a cricket club, not a region. Nowhere else in Ireland (certainly not in Leinster) has such a concentration of major senior clubs (North County, The Hills, Rush, Malahide) as Fingal. In the current decade, Fingal clubs have won five of the eight Irish Senior Cups on offer, and contributed eight finalists in total; this year's final was a Fingal derby between North County and The Hills. Ergo, Fingal is cricketing capital of Ireland. I'm nonplussed as to what the venue of national team games has to do with anything, unless you're suggesting that Saint Denis is the centre of French football.

There is very definitely such a thing as Fingal identity, and cricket is a major part of it. In fact, I'd define Fingal as those village-based communities of North County Dublin wherein cricket is the dominant sport. The problem, as others have pointed out, is that this notional region is by no means coterminous with the boundaries of Fingal County Council, which is why I reckon any future football club will be firmly anchored in Fingal proper.

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Originally Posted by Sheridan

Give it up, Steve - there's no Most Erroneous Opinions on Subjects One Knows Nothing About section in the Guinness Book of Records, and there never will be.

I'm a Clontarf supporter myself, but it's a cricket club, not a region. Nowhere else in Ireland (certainly not in Leinster) has such a concentration of major senior clubs (North County, The Hills, Rush, Malahide) as Fingal. In the current decade, Fingal clubs have won five of the eight Irish Senior Cups on offer, and contributed eight finalists in total; this year's final was a Fingal derby between North County and The Hills. Ergo, Fingal is cricketing capital of Ireland. I'm nonplussed as to what the venue of national team games has to do with anything, unless you're suggesting that Saint Denis is the centre of French football.

There is very definitely such a thing as Fingal identity, and cricket is a major part of it. In fact, I'd define Fingal as those village-based communities of North County Dublin wherein cricket is the dominant sport. The problem, as others have pointed out, is that this notional region is by no means coterminous with the boundaries of Fingal County Council, which is why I reckon any future football club will be firmly anchored in Fingal proper.

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Fascinating. But does nothing to explain why a County Council should be spending tax payers money on a vanity project like setting up a football club and building a stadium to create an identity for a region most of its inhabitants don't identify with (as they have alternative stronger identities).

That is the issue here.

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Originally Posted by LeixlipRed

How can a club that doesn't exist merge with us?

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If you believe then anything is possible ;):p

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Originally Posted by A face

If you believe then anything is possible ;):p

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Marraige of convenience or shotgun wedding? It's like getting your hand promised in matrimony to your hitherto unborn cousin-as is the custom in many parts of the globe:p

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Originally Posted by Sheridan

They're not planning the enter the league, they're planning to enter the A Championship initially.


They're not going to merge with Shelbourne as the club's raison d'etre is as a flagship for the "county."

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This was mooted a year or two ago as part of the reorganisation of the League. I think Santry Stadium, which is owned by FCC, was mentioned as the ground they would use. They would draw on young players from the locality and develop them. Think that was the plan.

Morton Stadium ( not Santry Stadium ) is the venue they propose to use initially. However, it is likely that in a few years, the city boundary will be moved to the M50 and Morton Stadium will be in the Dublin City Council area. Fingal County Council are proposing to invest money in football by building a football academy and municipal stadium. Obviously, they would feel that having a team in the Eircom League would be part of the package.
I agree with other posters that Fingal is the cricket capital of Ireland. Also, plenty of people living in Swords, Rush, Lusk, Skerries and Balbriggan have no problem with their Fingallian identity.
As far as I know, this Fingal team is well advanced in the planning stages and Liam Buckley has investors on board.

This is absolutely nuts. Irish football is on its knees, and football in Dublin probably even more so. The solution is not to put public resources into creating a new competing entity, whether or not it is based on a Fingal 'identity'. But that hasn't stopped them hauling their chains of office off on a junket to Rosenburg.

Fingal may have been a great place for Fionn mac Cumhaill and friends to lep about and chase each other around and even have a few overs in, but it is not in any sense a place in anyone's head. I've lived in the 'place' and near it, for much of my life, and not once have I met anyone who has told me, 'Hey, I'm from Fingal.'

This proposal could only ever have come from someone spending other people's money and who draw lines on maps for a living. Why don't they just cop on and support centuries-old clubs that are already in their area. or do the Greens running the joint not believe in heritage?
Fingal City? Could anything be more ludicrous?

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Originally Posted by Schumi

I'd imagine they identify with being from the Northside, which is what Fingal is essentially.

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Please tell me you're joking. :D

while I agree that Dublin doesnt need another football team I dont know how people can say that people in the north couny dont identify with Fingal.

below is a bit from wikipedia, i particulary like the bit about Fingal having its own language. if anyone has heard of the viking trail it gives a good insight into the genealogical background of Fingalians

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Originally Posted by Fingal hoop

below is a bit from wikipedia, i particulary like the bit about Fingal having its own language. if anyone has haerad of the viking trail it gives a good insight into the genealogical background of Fingalians

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Here come the Fingalians :eek:
Has Fingal's Wikepedia entry got mixed up with Wanderly Wagon's?

Fingal (Fine Gall in Irish, meaning "foreign tribe", i.e. Norsemen) is a county in the Republic of Ireland. It was formed from part of the former county Dublin. The Vikings referred to the area as Dyflinarskiri, the hinterland of Dublin. The original name however derived from the old Gaelic Fionn Gall meaning fair strangers, denoting the Norse, whereas south county Dublin was called Dubh Gall, denoting the occupying Danes. Early Anglo-Norman versions of the name include the similar Fiehengall, Fynnegal, Fyngal, and Finegal, which led to the mis-identification with Fine Gall. Fingalian is an extinct language, a hybrid of Old English and Old Norse, with Gaelic influences, which was spoken by the people of Fingal until the mid-1800s.

Contents [hide]
1 History
2 County status
3 Economy and society
4 Towns, villages and Dublin suburbs in Fingal
5 Fingal County Council
6 Bibliography References
7 External links



[edit] History
The first administrative identity going by a variant of the original name was the grant of the Lordship of Fingal, a Prescriptive Barony, confirmed by letters patent from King John to Walter de Lacy and his heirs in perpetuity, in 1208, and based on the latter's father Hugh de Lacy's holding the same on a basis of grand serjeanty for his services as bailiff to the King. The lordship of Fingal was a paramount superiority over several sub-infeudated smaller baronies (such as Castleknock, Santry, Balrothery), and thus eventually accrued vicecomital attributes leading to the granting of the first viscountcy in Ireland in 1478 to a Preston, Lord Gormanston, the Premier Viscount of Ireland, who at the time was the main landowner in the area, and a direct descendant of Walter de Lacy. That viscountcy was called after Gormanston as the latter was the principle seat and Manor of the Prestons at the time, having been acquired upon their relinquishment of occupancy of the Manor of Fyngallestoun. The Viscounts Gormanston continued to retain the Lordship of the latter under reversion.

The heraldic crest for Fingal reads "Flúirse Talaimh is Mara" meaning "Abundance of Land and Water". The motto reflects the strong farming and fishing ties historically associated with the area. It also features a Viking longboat, which represents the arrival of the Norse in Fingal, where they became integrated with the existing Irish.

In 1210, Fingal was included in County Dublin, one of the first twelve counties created by King John during the shiring of Ireland. Over the centuries, Fingal included several other baronies, namely Finglas, Feltrim, Howth, Shankill, and Swords. A peerage title as Earl of Fingall was created in 1628, by King Charles I of England, and granted to Lucas Plunkett, Baron Fingall, whose first wife, Elizabeth O'Donnell of Tyrconnell thus became 1st Countess of Fingall. The Plunketts also intermarried with the Prestons, Viscounts Gormanston. The title went extinct upon the death of the 12th and last Earl in 1984, along with a peerage barony of the same name, not to be confused with the titular prescriptive barony of Fingal, long retained by the Viscount Gormanston as an incorporeal hereditament in gross, until passed to the late Patrick Denis O'Donnell.


[edit] County status
The area of Fingal, which had been recognised in various historical accounts throughout the middle ages (most notably the Annals of the Four Masters), was raised to county status on 1 January 1994, through the Local Government (Dublin) Act, 1993 and more formally in the Local Government Act, 2001, with the division of old County Dublin into three new counties. Under the latter law, Fingal is determined and listed as a county under Part 1 - Counties, of Schedule 5 (page 195)[1].

Fingal covers the coastal area north of City of Dublin along the Irish Sea and south of the River Delvin to the River Liffey, and it is bordered by the counties of Meath, Kildare and South Dublin.

Fingal County Council, the local government authority, has its main offices in Swords.


[edit] Economy and society
Fingal is Ireland’s primary horticultural region, producing 50% of the national vegetable output and 75% of all glasshouse crops grown in the country. However, the areas of production are coming under severe pressure from other development and the rural towns are increasingly becoming dormitories for the City. Howth harbour is the biggest fishing harbour on the east coast and the fifth largest in the country.

Fingal itself is the fifth largest local government area in Ireland by population. The main urban center in Fingal is Blanchardstown with other important centres at Balbriggan, Castleknock, Howth, Malahide, Mulhuddart, and Swords. The Institute of Technology, Blanchardstown and Dublin International Airport are located within the county.

In 2006 Fingal County Council was lauded[2] by prominent Irish construction industry figures, politicians and EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs [3] for becoming the first local authority in Ireland to introduce mandatory sustainable building requirements. The policy, which relates to all construction in 8 parts of the county--including roughly 13,000 new homes--stipulates that the amount of energy and CO2 emissions associated with the heating and hot water of all buildings must be reduced by at least 60% compared to Irish Building Regulations, with at least 30% of the energy used for heating and hot water coming from renewable sources such as solar, geothermal or biomass.

Finally, according to the Irish National Census returns for 2006 [4], published by the Government's Central Statistics Office, Fingal is the youngest and fastest growing county in Ireland, with the most economically active population, thus in the fastest growing economy in the European Union[5]. It also is the most cosmopolitan county in Ireland, with the greatest mix of nationalities and ethnicities which has been its heritage for many centuries.





[edit] Towns, villages and Dublin suburbs in Fingal
Balbriggan, Baldoyle, Ballyboghil, Bayside, Blanchardstown
Castleknock, Castaheaney, Clonsilla, Corduff
Donabate
Garristown
Howth
Lusk
Malahide, Mulhuddart
Naul
Oldtown, Ongar
Portmarnock, Portrane
Rush
Rolestown (Rowlestown)
Skerries, Swords, Sutton
Tyrrelstown

[edit] Fingal County Council
Fingal County Council has 24 directly elected members. The members since the local election in 2004 are:

Labour: 6

Gerry McGuire*
Tom Kelleher*
Michael O'Donovan*
Peter Coyle*
Peggy Hamill*
Ciaran Byrne*
Fine Gael: 5

Anne Devitt*
Alan Farrell
Joan Maher*
Michael Joe Cosgrave*
Eithne Loftus**
Fianna Fáil: 4

Eoghan O'Brien**
Margaret Richardson*
Darragh Butler**
Brenda Clifford
Greens: 3

Robert Kelly*
David Healy
Joe Corr
Socialist Party: 2

Clare Daly*
Ruth Coppinger*
P.D.: 1

Mags Murray
Sinn Féin: 1

Felix Gallagher
Independent: 2

David O’Connor*
May McKeon
(* denotes councillors who were re-elected; ** denotes councillors co-opted in 2007)

Current Méara (Mayor): Alan Farrell


[edit] Bibliography References
Fingal and its Churches - A Historical Sketch, by Robert Walsh, M. A., Dublin and London, 1888.
Rotuli Chartarum in Turri Londinensi Asservati, edited by Thomas Duffus Hardy, published in 1837. (Available in the Tower of London and in the Guildhall Library, London; it contains original text of the Grant of Fingal by King John in 1208).
The Calendar of the Gormanston Register, Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, edited by James Mills and M.J. McEnery, University Press, Dublin, 1916. The Gormanston Register is a collection of ancient manuscripts going back to the 12th century, belonging to the Viscounts Gormanston, and now lodged in the National Library of Ireland, in Dublin.
History of Killeen Castle, by Mary Rose Carty, published by Carty/Lynch, Dunsany, County Meath, Ireland, April 1991 (ISBN 0-9517382-0-8). This includes a history of the Earls of Fingall - page 18 refers to Lucas Plunkett, the 1st Earl of Fingall, whose first wife was Elizabeth O'Donnell of Tyrconnell, 1st Countess of Fingall.
Blood Royal - From the time of Alexander the Great to Queen Elizabeth II, by Charles Mosley (genealogist), published for Ruvigny Ltd, London, 2002 (O'Donnell listed as Baron of Fyngal, page v) ISBN 0-9524229-9-9
History of the County of Dublin, by Francis Elrington Ball, Dublin, 1902.
History of the County of Dublin, by John D'Alton, Esq., M.R.I.A. Hodges and Smith, Dublin, 1838.
Dublin City and County: From Prehistory to Present, edited by F.H.A. Allen and Kevin Whelan, Geography Publications, Dublin, 1992 [ISBN 0-906602-19-X].
Seventy Years Young, Memoires of Elizabeth, Countess of Fingall, by Elizabeth Burke Plunkett, Lady Fingall. First published by Collins of London in 1937; 1991 edition published by The Lilliput Press, Dublin 7, Ireland [ISBN 0 946640 74 2]. This Elizabeth, was a Burke from Moycullen in County Galway, who married the 11th Earl of Fingall, and should not be confused with Elizabeth O'Donnell, 1st Countess of Fingall.

As a resident of Portmarnock,and a lifelong Shamrock Rovers' fan born in Dublin's south inner city, I totally oppose the concept of me or any members of my family being anything other than Dubliners.
I live in Dublin! Balls to Fingal! It's just an ego trip for local politicos and a platform for culchies who've moved to Dublin and want to distance themselves from the harsh reality that their kids are Dubs.
Ultimately, if FG's Anne Devitt is in favour of something, I'm against it. What I think of that woman can't be mentioned on this site as we'd all end up in court.
On a positive note, at least the myopic, egocentric FCC are pro-football. I hope the SDCC realises that they need to reciprocate and get the finger out with regards to getting Rovers playing in Tallaght ASAP.
Fingal Hoop: there are 32 counties in Ireland and none are called 'Fingal'. Although I will never again visit a GAA stadium (thanks to the actions of Thomas Davis), I know who I'd be up for if Fingal played Dublin in the Leinster championship and I gave a crap about bogball.

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Originally Posted by BohDiddley

This is absolutely nuts. Irish football is on its knees, and football in Dublin probably even more so. The solution is not to put public resources into creating a new competing entity, whether or not it is based on a Fingal 'identity'. But that hasn't stopped them hauling their chains of office off on a junket to Rosenburg.

Fingal may have been a great place for Fionn mac Cumhaill and friends to lep about and chase each other around and even have a few overs in, but it is not in any sense a place in anyone's head. I've lived in the 'place' and near it, for much of my life, and not once have I met anyone who has told me, 'Hey, I'm from Fingal.'

This proposal could only ever have come from someone spending other people's money and who draw lines on maps for a living. Why don't they just cop on and support centuries-old clubs that are already in their area. or do the Greens running the joint not believe in heritage?
Fingal City? Could anything be more ludicrous?

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Great post. For a Bohs' fan.

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Originally Posted by Billy Lord

On a positive note, at least the myopic, egocentric FCC are pro-football. I hope the SDCC realises that they need to reciprocate and get the finger out with regards to getting Rovers playing in Tallaght ASAP.

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DL/Rathdown Co. Council are getting behind UCD's coaching in the community initiative.

I have no problem with the new club, I just wonder where they get the 'City' bit from if the story is to be believed. The radius of influence of clubs in Dublin doesn't expand that far so one more club based in the far North East of Dublin is out of the sphere of influence of any current club except maybe Drogheda or Bohs at a stretch.

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Originally Posted by Sam Savic

Morton Stadium ( not Santry Stadium ) is the venue they propose to use initially. However, it is likely that in a few years, the city boundary will be moved to the M50 and Morton Stadium will be in the Dublin City Council area. Fingal County Council are proposing to invest money in football by building a football academy and municipal stadium. Obviously, they would feel that having a team in the Eircom League would be part of the package.
I agree with other posters that Fingal is the cricket capital of Ireland. Also, plenty of people living in Swords, Rush, Lusk, Skerries and Balbriggan have no problem with their Fingallian identity.
As far as I know, this Fingal team is well advanced in the planning stages and Liam Buckley has investors on board.

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Morton Stadium, Santry Stadium, same place. Old habits die hard for this Fingallian;)

Meh. Fingal my eye. Norse occupiers of Southern Brega more like.