 The James McLaughlin is on TV tonight, it's a program on TGKR called Skeleton the Gorn and it sees Grania Magdalene traveling, well she's around the country for the whole series but here in Donegal tonight and so what the series is about is it's the stories behind the trophies that are presented for GA competitions, everything from under 10s through to the All Ireland and she meets and chats with past and present players and former presidents and referees and managers and grassroots supporters and I'm glad now that Grania actually joins us on the radio and online as well on YouTube and Facebook if you want to have a look. Grania, how did you get on in Donegal with the filming? I know it was some time back with the shows on tonight so how did Donegal treat you? Donegal treated me very well, it was great, we had fantastic time as we've had in all the counties that we visited over the past number of months for the series, as you mentioned there it's it's it's been a lovely series to be involved with John because as as I didn't realize but there's over 2,000 pieces of silverware, GA silverware around the country so we haven't covered all those pieces of silverware now in this series so hopefully we'll get a few more serieses to do that but what was really lovely about it was finding out who these people were because cups are presented to players and fans know their names but they don't actually know who these people were, what were their connection with the GA, how important they were in terms of you've mentioned some of the people that we've spoken with but what I loved about it and the whole tagline of the GA is to Ausdunia Ligon, there's a place for everyone and we definitely find that throughout the whole series like we we found people that had been heavily involved in obviously administration and but also people that had just been volunteers that had just actually turned up at their club over the number of years and had been involved and cups were named after them so it was lovely to hear those personal stories and also what it meant to their loved ones having a cup named after them so it was a real um I suppose microcosm and insight into the history of our country as well just finding out when these cups were presented at different times throughout throughout the past decade so very very enjoyable well we hear the names of the cups and then when the competition comes around and it gets to the final and just sort of the name becomes part of the lexicon if you like and the really big ones the national ones there's the Sam McGuire and the Liam McCarthy but you go around to all the different counties and and find out the the stories behind and the characters behind the the the cups that are given out locally and as a result you're you're digging into GEA history but also just general local history. 100% and what's really interesting about Johnny Gawne and obviously we know it's a very proud footballing county but it's also a very proud hurling county as well and you mentioned the lovely James McLaughlin who we spoke with he was he's he was first in our program actually tonight and he's talking about Bert Hurlin and obviously that connection that dates back maybe to the 15th century like when Hurlin would have came over with the plantation with the Kamaniok and Shinty that would have came over from Scotland and how that tradition has stayed in Donegal and in Bert in particular and just how what it means to them and obviously you know we've heard the the stories of of Cuckolan and Sitanta and the Hurlin and all that as well so you know just to have that connection and going back to that time so you know Hurlin's very very proud tradition as well and even what was really interesting what we find as well that Hurlin in the north would have been much stronger in the north of the country at the beginning and now obviously it's very very strong in the southern part of the country compared to the northern part of the country but it was just very fascinating to him getting his experience of what it was playing Hurlin and and the the commands and the actual hurls that they used as well and he would have used growing up so that was really interesting like we traveled all around Donegal like we we were in Bert we were in Ghidor around the first Glen Column kill and we were in valuable fay so we were in lots our draw we were lots of different places speaking to lots of different people about cups named after people in their clubs that had done so much for the GEN just hearing about who they were and the stories the personal stories behind them. Well you see it's a great concept because if you if you follow the cups and you try to get the stories behind the cups then straight away you're digging into local history and local characters and and you've done that and obviously I went around a lot of the county and when I came to Hurling and finding out the the history of Hurling and Komogi here in Donegal which a lot of people might not be familiar with would be seen as you know more of a footballing county and then you're going into the the the history of the GA and delving down into the grass roots so it's a great way to not just know about find out about the GA but also a community. 100% and also people that would have came from outside the county like you know you mentioned Komogi there we have one of the cups that is actually still missing and that's one of the things I'm hoping we have two cups in the series that are missing once in Donegal it's called the Corn Criven again Colosh the Olu so this would have been presented and Komogi Cup Agnes O'Farley or Eun and the Ark Alley would have been her name in in Irish she would have she would have been involved in setting up Colosh the Olu in 1906 and she was hugely involved she's from Cavern originally but would have been hugely involved in Komogi in UCD in Dublin and would have found it as part of Conran Ageligan the revival of the Irish language would have been involved in setting up this college here Colosh the Olu and what she did was had sort of Komogi Cup present this Komogi Cup and Clahaneely would have been one of the teams that have won that cup but this cup's missing since the since the 80s John and nobody knows where it is and it's like a cup that we'll in next week's series as well in Galway the Inky Faharty Cup which is for a hurling cup as well for the Connix for Connix Senior Hurling and Galway would have won that and the last time that was I think it's 1995 it's missing since then so those two cups are somewhere like they're under somebody's bed they're in a wardrobe they're in an attic they're in a box somewhere so somewhere and people are going to wonder where that cup came from so it would be great if people look at this series and go cost you know what I think that cup looks very like a cup that I have in my house which we'll see in our core program actually did happen and John but it's you know it's it would be great if we could find these cups and just restore them because people obviously have a huge love of history and the Democrat Cup is also another cup that we feature in tonight's program as well and that would have been presented for the Donegal senior football league I think it's 1926 that would have been presented first of all and what you notice is when a lot of the cups like cups are presented by businesses like the Democrat newspapers newspapers would have a media would have presented cups the clergy would have presented cups because in that time in history they were the people that had money that could actually present cups and there's a huge connection to the series with immigrants people that have left home who still as we all know have a massive affinity with their home club and their home county so they would have raised money abroad and sent that back home as well like to buy cups and to buy medals so that's a huge theme going through the series as well and it gives you that snapshot and time and we learn about you know the 1990 obviously you know we're just before civil war like you know we've blackened hands we've all that coming in so we're seeing how Ireland would have lived at that particular time and and how people lived and what the communications aspect of the county and off the country would have been as well so it's a it's a series about cups but there's a lot of history in it as well showing you the periods of time where the cups were presented and how people lived at that time as well it sounds like you had a busy time because you had to go around the country and there was all these store all these cups and all the stories that went with them and all the characters so a lot of work behind the scenes there was a lot of work behind the scene but there was a fabulous team Hanani Guha and Hanis from Randa Farshta and she's the producer of the series from Imagine Media and we had great times with so much work done and Humphrey Kelleher is a series consultant and Humphrey would have written a book called Family Silver where he would have chronicled a lot of the well better well-known cups and from that Han had spoken to Humphrey about this and they had done she had done lots of loads of more research on all the different cups in the different counties so there's loads of cups I mean there are absolutely loads of them but you're looking for really lovely personal stories behind them and they're really interesting there's also a lot of very sad stories as well John a lot of cups are named after people who died on timely you know and died far too young so there's those stories as well that are in the series but what you realize is being part of the GA that it is a family and for a lot of people I think before this series was just a piece of silverware that they raised but actually from this series you realize actually this person meant an awful lot to the GA this person meant a lot to their community and every time that cup was raised and every time we speak about the cup their names are remembered in the public and I think that's a lovely feature of the series and it means so much to their loved ones you know you might think oh it doesn't maybe 20 years 30 years later but it does you know because it's their memories being kept alive and I just thought that it's been a lovely facet of the series and it's been just such a joy as me as the presenter to speak to all the families and the people about their loved ones and about what the cups meant well brilliant we look forward to seeing the the episode filmed here in Donegal tonight it's just a reminder by the way that this is episode four in a six episode series and we can see it tonight it's called Scaled in the Corn and it's on a tg car at half past eight thank you very much