G'day Fergus,

"Bol-eye-nah" ... ! I've never heard any Australian pronounce Ballina in any way that could be interpreted thus (... except ... just possibly ... by some New Zealanders - who believe all vowels are totally unstressed!)

The listing in The Macquarie Dictionary - the Australian standard for spelling, meaning and pronunciation - has a phonetic rendition I can't reproduce, as I can't specify phonetic script fonts, however, it has the first 'a' pronounced as the 'short a' in cat [phonetic symbol is an ~ æ diphthong] and the others as a schwa [phonetic symbol is an e, rotated 180º], such as the unstressed 'a' in ago ... roughly "Ball-uh-n-uh" ...

Regards,

Bob Bolton