Ballina and Athis-Mons are firm friends after 31 years

Ballina has been formally twinned with Athis-Mons in France for 31 years. Next Saturday, October 12, the 15th International DiViPassion Short Film Festival will take place at Ballina Arts Centre as one of 15 events in Ballina Fringe Festival.

This festival of short film – the DiViPassion organisation’s flagship event – normally occurs in Athis-Mons. But a Ballina Athis-Mons collaboration has brought the independent short film festival to the North Mayo capital in 2024.

Christian Fages, one of the group visiting Ballina this week with the DiViPassion organisation, has been coming to the town since the late 1980s. He is known by shopkeepers, musicians and those passionate about history, and has been instrumental in forging the relationship between Ballina and Athis-Mons from the start. Since 1993, he has led the French Athis-Mons-Ballina twin town association.

Learning about the twinning, I got to know Christian and his wife Nicole in 2018 and 2019. I helped out when they, and a party from the independent film-making organisation, DiViPassion, came to Ballina in October 2018 to make a film about Ballina man Stephen Kennedy who died in the First World War and is buried in Athis-Mons graveyard. I returned a visit to Athis-Mons in January 2019 to attend the DiViPassion Short film Festival.

The early years 

Christian and Nicole told me of amazing things they had done with Ballina over the years - anecdotes of Athis-Mons hosting a group of people with disabilities from Ballina’s Western Care Association and the fun that was organised, including an open-coach trip to Paris. 

Christian remembered a rugby team from Athis-Mons coming to Ballina and playing a challenge match with Ballina Rugby Club in 1996 (the Western People reported that Athis-Mons triumphed in a 28 to 34 scoreline.

But the pièce de résistance came in 2002 when local historian PJ Clarke discovered the link between Athis-Mons and Stephen Kennedy. It was an unbelievable realisation that Stephen Kennedy was the first Irishman to die in World War I. Ever since then the Irish Ambassador or a representative attends the commemoration in Athis-Mons on November 11 each year.

There have been 102 articles referencing Athis-Mons in the Western People since 1989.

The two towns were formally twinned in reciprocal ceremonies in Athis Mons (June 1993) and Ballina (July 1994) after a period of preparation from 1989.

Pascal Noury, the then mayor of Athis-Mons, presented introduction papers to Minister of State Sean Calleary, and Cllr Neil Doherty, Chairman, Ballina Urban Council, at an informal ceremony in Ballina in the autumn of 1989.

A 60-strong group from Athis-Mons came to Ballina in May 1992, including the Breton traditional group, Le Cercle Celtique D’Alc Mat. 

Cllr Gerry Moore addressed the group during “a civic reception at Ballina Urban Council offices". He “…expressed the hope that visits between the two areas would increase, that friendships would flourish and that Ballina and Athis Mons would become close twins".

In 1993, readers of the Western People learned that Ballina would have an ambassador – the paper named it an “attaché” – on the ground in Athis Mons in the lead-up to the twinning with the French town that summer.

“Siobhan Greavy, a student at St Mary’s Secondary School, Ballina, has been awarded a bursary, as an attache to the Services Cultural in Athis-Mons which is Ballina’s twin in France," reported the newspaper.

Siobhan was to travel to France on May 1st and she would be “based in the Town Hall in Athis-Mons".

"She will represent Ballina in the run-up to the official town twinning ceremony between Ballina and Athis-Mons, the French part of which takes place in Athis-Mons on June 26th this year…”

A Ballina delegation went to Athis-Mons for the first leg of the twinning in June 1993. It was a major event still remembered today by those who attended. The Ballina Strawboys and other dancers led by Patricia Jackson (around 70 people) travelled. The Western People congratulated Padraig Mitchell for coordinating the entire trip and noted that Michael Walkin of Sunset Tours & Travel “made all the travel arrangements”. The Strawboys performed their ‘Céilí House ‘93’ cabaret to rapturous applause and demands for encore. The paper reported that celebrations went on for a week.

It was Cllr Ernie Caffrey, as mayor of Ballina, who signed the twinning agreement in Ballina on July 10, 1994, with his Athis-Mons counterpart Madame Marie-Noelle Lienemann, Mayor of Athis Mons in a large ceremony during the Ballina Salmon Festival when the French delegation was received in Ballina.

Reading through the 102 articles relating to Athis-Mons is a trip into the history of Ballina, and a chance to meet again with names of familiar personalities and to see their faces again in photographs.

I learned that a large number of people and organisations intersected with Athis Mons and with Christian Fages over the years.

In the decade from 2014 to 2024, there seem to be fewer articles in the paper in relation to the twinning with Athis-Mons. Nonetheless, large events in 2015 and in 2023, and smaller interactions, show the warmth and the regard are intact.

Conclusion 

One may conclude that the 31-year history of the Ballina Athis-Mons connection is the story of a mature twinning. Did it fulfill the hope of the late Gerry Moore all those years ago that Ballina and Athis-Mons would be “close twins”?

It certainly achieved something essential – the “Friendship Pact" or the “Protocole d’Amitié”, which was signed by Cllr Séan McLoughlin and Mayor Marie-Noelle Lienemann in June 1993, has been honoured and is vividly alive. And in this, I thank Christian Fages, and the town of Ballina and its environs, and the strands that weave through all of our stories.

The 15th International DiViPassion Short Film Festival takes place in Ballina Arts Centre this Saturday, October 12 (11am-5pm in sessions). Flexible entrance. To book, and to check out the full programme, visit www.ballinafringefestival.ie. Early booking advised.