Ballina and Athis-Mons are celebrating a remarkable 31 years of friendship, proving that strong bonds can transcend borders. Ann-Marie Kilgallon, a dedicated volunteer with the Ballina Fringe Festival, reflects on the enduring connection between these two towns, which has grown deeper with each passing year through cultural exchange, shared experiences, and community spirit.
Photo Credit: Christian Fages
Ballina has been formally twinned with Athis-Mons (France) for 31 years! This Saturday, 12th October, 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 there 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.
Photo Credit: Christian Fages
A trip down memory lane – the early years
Christian and Nicole told me of amazing things they had done with Ballina – 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 over twenty years ago, 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 the First World War. Ever since, the Irish Ambassador or a representative attends the 11 November commemoration in Athis-Mons.
In the archives
Between 1989 and 2024 there are 102 articles that contain the expression ‘Athis Mons’ in the Western People archives.
Beginnings
The two towns were formally twinned in reciprocal ceremonies in Athis Mons (June 1993) and in Ballina (July 1994) after a period of preparation from 1989.
Photo Credit: Christian Fages
According to a photo in the Western People, Pascal Noury, mayor of Athis Mons, presented introduction papers to Minister of State, Mr. Sean Calleary, T. D. and Councillor Neil Doherty, Chairman, Ballina Urban Council at an informal ceremony in Ballina at the end of August/start. of September 1989.
Twinning in Athis Mons – 20 June 1993
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 newspaper 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.
Preliminaries in Ballina – May 1992
A ‘sixty-strong’ group from Athis Mons had come to Ballina the previous year, in May 1992 (in the lead-up to the twinning), including the Breton traditional group, Le Cercle Celtique D’Alc Mat. Collr Gerry Moore (RIP) 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.”
Ballina presence in Athis-Mons in 1993
Readers learn 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 in summer 1993.
“…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.”
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…”
Twinning in Ballina – 10 July 1994
Photo Credit: Christian Fages
It was Cllr Ernie Caffrey, as mayor of Ballina, who signed the twinning agreement in Ballina on 10 July 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 were received here.
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 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 is intact.
Conclusion
One may conclude that the thirty-one year history of the Ballina Athis Mons connection is the story of a mature twinning. Did it fulfill the hope of 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”, that was signed by Collr. 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, 12th October (11am-5pm in sessions). Flexible entrance. To book, and to check out the full programme, visit: https://ballinafringefestival.ie. Early booking advised. Join in!
