I know how to delete remote branches, so this question isn't: cleaning up old remote git branches or how to manage obsolete branches on github
Rather, my problem is that deleting old feature branches will lose the commit messages and with them, the JIRA issue tags within. Thus we'll no longer be able to see the commits made against a given issue from JIRA.
Is there any way to clean up, close or hide remote branches from the git branch -a listing, but not destroy the messages we need for JIRA's git plugin to do its thing?