{"id":780204,"date":"2026-07-05T08:21:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T08:21:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/780204\/"},"modified":"2026-07-05T08:21:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T08:21:11","slug":"sion-mills-cricket-clubs-162-year-wait-to-own-home-ground-ends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/780204\/","title":{"rendered":"Sion Mills: Cricket club&#8217;s 162-year wait to own home ground ends"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The ground purchase is not the first time the club has been helped by Frances Connolly, who has family connections to the area.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In 2019, an arson attack at the club sparked <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-northern-ireland-49650668\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">fears over its survival. <\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But with her help the club did survive, and now with a grant from the foundation she and her husband set up in memory of her mother.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We could not have done anything without the Kathleen Graham Trust and we owe a huge debt of gratitude to them for that,&#8221; Galloway said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Connollys from Moira, County Down, and who live in England, have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/av\/uk-northern-ireland-46759929\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">given away more than half<\/a> of the \u00a3115m fortune they won in 2019.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Kathleen Graham Trust, named after Frances&#8217; mother, is one of two foundations the couple set up after their lottery win.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The ground purchase is not the first time the club has been helped by Frances Connolly, who has&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":780205,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-780204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=780204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/780205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=780204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=780204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=780204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}