On June 12, 1988, Packie Bonner wrote his name into Irish sporting history with a string of world class saves to deny Gary Lineker and co as Ireland recorded an historic 1-0 victory over England in Stuttgart in the opening round of Euro ‘88. Fast forward 26 years exactly and Bonner was in the less flamboyant surroundings of Fr O’Brien Park in Achill where he took training with Achill Rovers.
The former Ireland and Celtic goalkeeper was in Achill as part of the Underdogs Programme for the John Murray Show on RTÉ Radio One. He may have long retired from football but the big man from Donegal certainly knows how to draw the crowds with 24 players present for training - up considerably from the half dozen or so who would normally show for mid week training.
As well as the players there were plenty of children and big children who turned up to witness training and get their picture taken with one of the heroes of Euro ‘88 and Italia ’90. Among them was former President of Mayo GAA, Packie McGinty, no doubt welcoming his namesake to Achill and letting him know who the number one Packie in Achill is.
The Donegal Packie is no stranger to Achill and explained that his aunt was married to an Achill man Anthony Cafferkey in Scotland. He said he had no hesitation in training the Rovers side.
With no sign of John Murray anywhere - presumably telling him to turn right at the Grove meant nothing to him - Packie decided to go ahead with the training. Many of the drills appeared alien to a number of the players and it took them a while to get used to what Packie wanted them to do. 
If any of the players thought they were in for an easy ride they were mistaken as Packie was taking it seriously and not afraid to make them work. Mark Davitt may have scored a hat-trick in a previous game against Iorras Iontaithe B but his ego was brought down a peg or two when Packie gave him an earful for failing to hold his position.
Inevitably with a star coach looking on a few of the players were trying to perfect their Ronaldo stepovers with Rovers’ very own number seven, Kevin Lynch, connecting brilliantly with an acrobatic bicycle kick. Pity the effort was off target.
When the session was over Packie gave a pep-talk to the players and expressed himself satisfied with the session.
“It was great to get back on the pitch again especially down here in Achill Island and the boys responded really well. We went through a few things with them and hopefully they picked up a few bits and pieces that will help. I could have done more tactical stuff but it was about getting them to think about creating space,” he explained.
For the permanent Rovers coach, Martin McGing said he hoped the enthusiasm of having Packie on board would  propel them to promotion.
“The type of coaching Packie has brought is not something that we would be used to but definitely something that we will use again. The club is in a lot better place now than it was two years ago and the plan is eventually to get to Super League football. Having someone of the stature of Packie here will only benefit the club and the players.”
Following training, Packie was joined by RTÉ football commentator Gabriel Egan in Gielty’s Clew Bay in Dooagh for a Q&A session hosted by the club. The training session will be covered on the John Murray Show on Radio One tomorrow (Wednesday) at 9am.

Packie Bonner visits Achill Rovers (RTE's John Murray show)

Ring Of Achill
Katriona McFadden travels to Achill to meet listener Paddy Gallagher, and his parents Kathleen and Geoffrey, to hear the amazing story of the engagement ring which was lost, only to be found 18 years later, after the intervention of a cow!

The Ring of Achill (RTE Radio 1's Derek Mooney Show)

Mysterious National Geographic Photo Of Achill Island

We often tell you to go to this website to see photos, get extra information on items we have covered or to listen back. And we're happy to say that we are one of the top webpages in all of RTÉ. But today we'd like you to 'play along' with our next item!

It involves a mysterious photograph and where it might have been taken...

A couple of weeks ago, Mooney listener Paddy Gallagher from Achill Island contacted us about his mother's engagement ring. You might remember it was lost in a haystack and turned up eighteen years later in a neighbouring field and it was a very charming story beautifully told by his parents Kathleen and Geoffrey.

And whilst Mooney reporter Katriona McFadden was in Achill, Paddy happened to mention another story to her, about a mysterious photo.  Paddy was on eBay one night googling Achill and he came across a photo page for sale from a 1915 National Geographic magazine.



It's a black and white photograph taken by an A.W. Cutler on Achill Island and printed in National Geographic magazine. You’ll see an old thatched cottage, a little girl on a horse, an older woman (maybe her grandmother) and other small children, a big turf pile and in the background the sea and the Minaun cliffs.

Paddy thought it was fascinating and thought it might be nice to try to figure out where the photo was taken and who the people were in the photo. He thought he might easily trace their descendants and show them this photo.

Option 1: Deserted Village on Achill Island

But it proved to be a little tricky.  He enlisted the help of his friend Sean Molloy and they decided that the photo was taken at Achill's famous Deserted Village – which is now a big tourist attraction - which was deserted after the Famine after rents went up but it remained as a 'Boley Village' where cattle were brought to graze in summer.

But then a spanner was thrown in the works by local Archaeologist Dr Theresa McDonald. She said she spotted a few discrepancies in the photo and SHE believed the photo was taken less than a mile up the road at another location.

So Paddy called Mooney to try to figure it out and get to the bottom of it! You can make up your own mind by looking at the pictures above and listen to Katriona's interviews, to try and decide just where was the photograph taken...

To visit the 'What's On In Achill' Facebook page, as mentioned in the report, click here.

Mysterious National Geographic Photo Of Achill Island - RTE's Mooney Show

The Irish island that children learn to leave.
By John Murphy BBC Radio 4
The economic crisis of 2008 drove hundreds of thousands of young Irish people from their homeland in search of work - as a result some rural communities are on the verge of dying out.

"Regan's pub has gone. Paddy Jordan's has gone. The one across from the station has gone." Nicola speaks quietly as she carefully pours a pint of the black stuff, and paints a picture of business decline. "Two, no, three hotels have gone into receivership," she adds.

Nicola is 26 and has completed her degree in heritage studies. She went to university in Dublin and came back to Ballina in County Mayo, in the west of Ireland, because her mother was having an operation. But she plans to leave again soon - in her case meandering along canals in a boat called Rumdoodle.

"Aren't you putting off the inevitable, when you have to find a proper job?" I ask.

"I guess so but there's nothing here," she says. She didn't really notice until she came back from her studies that half her friends had gone and she doesn't expect many of them to return.

Continue reading the main story
Find out more

Listen to John Murphy's report from Achill on Crossing Continents on the BBC iPlayer from 12:00GMT on Thursday.

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Since the financial crash of 2008, when Ireland itself effectively went into receivership and had to have an international bailout, 200,000 Irish people have left their country in search of work according to estimates based on figures from Ireland's Central Statistics Office. Others have had to move to cities such as Dublin and Cork to get jobs.

Last year 250 people a day, most in their 20s and 30s, packed their bags and left Ireland - many are highly educated. It is the highest emigration rate of any country in the European Union.

The result has been a stripping out of rural communities, like those on Achill Island, about an hour's drive from Ballina, in the far west of Mayo. Achill is Ireland's largest island, linked to the mainland by a short bridge. Under it, the tide scrambles in and out every few hours.

Map showing location of Achill Island
When the sun shines Achill is beautiful. Peat bogs spread over much of the centre of the island. Around the edges the rocky shore, cliffs and beaches challenge the Atlantic Ocean to do its worst.

The winter months can be bleak here. No doubt the black-faced sheep that clamber across the hills could tell a weather-related story or two. Maybe that's what all the baa-baaing is about.

I imagine the rounded hills guarding the island. To me at least, one of them looks like a curled up, sleeping bloodhound. And the sharpened-tooth shape of Slievemore, Gaelic for Big Mountain, keeps a watchful eye from the north shore. Yet, as the Irish would say, "You can't eat scenery."

A teacher tells me, "We're educating our young people to emigrate." A whopping 94% of secondary school leavers on Achill go on to university level education - off the island of course. It's the highest figure of any parish in Ireland.

Then they have to leave altogether, to find work. Some may come back in the summer months when the short tourist season is at its peak, or to help cut the peat - turf as they call it here.

Another reason to come back is sport - members of the local Gaelic football club return from across Ireland each weekend for Friday night training and a match on Saturday.

But the club has lost 20 players - more than a team's worth - to emigration in the last few years. It can be a struggle to get a full senior squad together.

For one important match last season Achill were so short of players that two flew back from the UK and one from Sweden to make up the numbers. But the haemorrhaging of players led to relegation.

Continue reading the main story
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Start Quote

Denis Randle
It'll be like blowing out a candle in a dark room”

They had been on the verge of promotion, the manager, Paul McNamara tells me. "Instead we lost players. This isn't just about emigration, it's about rural depopulation, and no-one's doing anything about it," he says.

County Mayo is the constituency of Ireland's prime minister, the Taoiseach, Enda Kenny - as a younger man he played for and coached his local Gaelic football team, Islandeady.

He admits there has been a brain drain out of the country. "Young people will not stay unless there's action. Every week young people are leaving," he says.

But he's also keen to give a positive message. "For the three years prior to 2011 we lost 330,000 jobs - we're now creating a thousand jobs a week. We've come through a very deep trough here and 95% of the difficulties are now behind us."

The Taoiseach wants young people to come back with the experience they've gained abroad, to benefit Ireland.

On the Sunday afternoon, after a long night in the pub celebrating their hard fought victory against another struggling club, the Achill Gaelic Football players are back on the pitch playing soccer this time.

Sport is like a glue for society on the island according to the chairman of the soccer club, Sean Molloy, who has also been a DJ here for 28 years.

He has never seen it as quiet as it is now but argues that as long as the players return regularly, there's a chance that they'll come back to live on the island.

"The only thing that's bringing people back is the sport but if they have no reason to come back, then there's no reason to come back - ever," he says.

Classroom at The Valley National School, Achill
Katie Kane's teaching job at The Valley National School, Achill has been cut
From the vantage point of one of the local primary schools on Achill, The Valley National School, the prospect of the local population growing again looks like a distant one.

The school, which has been celebrating its centenary this year, now has just 15 pupils. "In September we'll go down to 12 and we'll become a single teacher school," the headmaster Denis Randle says .

He worries about the future and says that if services, especially the schools, are stripped out of an area young families won't come back, even if they want to.

He expects his school to close in the next four years. "It'll be like blowing out a candle in a dark room," he says.

Crossing Continents BBC Radio 4 - Achill emmigration

The Achil ladies play in their 3rd county final tomorrow and are hoping to make it third time lucky by securing the championship for the first time. Team Captain, Karina Moran spoke to Whats On In Achill about the team, the club and what it means to everybody involved

What's On In Achill.