Archive News
Galway West could fall to a four-seater under D‡il seat cuts plans
Date Published: {J}
Those census returns forms we all filed in a little over a week ago will have an important role to play in the months to come in the threatened redrawing of the Dáil constituencies.
Under Government proposals, and with no apparent opposition from others, there are predictions that Galway West could drop from a five-seater to a four in the next General Election under any new Dáil Constituency Commission.
It is part of the government programme that the number of Dáil seats will be reduced from 166 to 140 and the spotlight seems sure to fall on a number of five-seaters around the country as the boundaries are redrawn. That would bring Galway West directly into the firing line.
There is some plea that five-seaters with a large urban area might be spared – which could bring some hope of relief for TDs Sean Kyne and Brian Walsh (Fine Gael), Derek Nolan (Labour), Eamon Ó Cuív (Fianna Fáil), and Noel Grealish (Independent), but the feeling in usually informed circles is that Galway West might not survive the cut.
Time was when this sort of revision, which is totally dictated by population numbers with about 20,000 people per Dáil seat, was controlled by the politicians themselves, but Jack Lynch ended that in 1977 when FF came to power in huge numbers . . . to some extent on the back of a constituency revision done by outgoing Environment Minister Jimmy Tully (Labour), which misfired badly in the 1977 General Election when the FG and Labour support simply bombed and they suffered a huge defeat.
Since then revisions have been presided over by a High Court Judge and we must presume the same set up will apply in the months to come as the painful business of cutting back on the Dáil seats goes ahead. If the number in Galway West is reduced to four, then life will become more difficult for all the sitting TDs, and also for those who might fancy their chances in the future.
In more normal times – when you could predict from year to year how a party might fare in an election still to come – we could have said that the politicians who would come into the firing line in such a revision in Galway West would be more likely to be the Independents.
These would be people like Grealish, who is now in his third term in the Dáil, or indeed Catherine Connolly (former Labour), who made such a drive at a seat at the General Election a few weeks ago, or indeed another potential coming name like Trevor Ó Clochartaigh, who might yet build on a Seanad seat if a newly-strengthened Sinn Féin could deliver one for him.
In those more normal times it might have been possible to say that the ones most likely to hang on would be Fine Gael’s two newcomers Kyne and Walsh, Labour’s Nolan, FF’s Ó Cuív . . . simply because they had a big party structure behind them and that guaranteed a certain level of bedrock support.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
People’s living conditions less than 100 years ago were frightening. We have come a long way. We talk about water charges today, but back then the local District Councils were erecting pumps for local communities and the lovely town of Mountbellew, according to Council minutes, had open sewers,” says Galway County Council archivist Patria McWalter.
Patria believes we “need to take pride in our history, and we should take the same pride in our historical records as we do in our built heritage”. When you see the wealth of material in her care, this belief makes sense.
She is in charge of caring for the rich collection of administrative records owned by Galway County Council and says “these records are as much part of our history as the Rock of Cashel is. They document our lives and our ancestors’ lives. And nobody can plan for the future unless you learn from the past, what worked and what didn’t”.
Archivists and librarians are often unfairly regarded as being dry, academic types, but that’s certainly not true of Patria. Her enthusiasm is infectious as she turns the pages of several minute books from Galway’s Rural District Councils, all of them at least 100 years old.
Part of her role involved cataloguing all the records of the Councils – Ballinasloe, Clifden, Galway, Gort, Loughrea, Mountbellew, Portumna and Tuam. These records mostly consisted of minutes of various meetings.
When she was cataloguing them she realised their worth to local historians and researchers, so she decided to compile a guide to their content. The result is For the Record: The Archives of Galway’s Rural District Councils, which will be a valuable asset to anybody with an interest in history.
Many representatives on these Councils were local personalities and several were arrested during the political upheaval of the era, she explains.
And, ushering in a new era in history, women were allowed to sit on these Rural District Councils – at the time they were not allowed to sit on County Councils.
All of this information is included in Patria’s introductory essay to the attractively produced A4 size guide, which gives a glimpse into how these Rural Councils operated and the way political thinking changed in Ireland during a short 26-year period. In the early 1900s, these Councils supported Home Rule, but by 1920, they were calling for full independence and refusing to recognise the British administration.
“I love the tone,” says Patria of the minutes from meetings. “The language was very emotive.”
That was certainly true of the Gort Rural District Council. At a meeting in 1907, following riots in Dublin at the premiere of JM Synge’s play, The Playboy of the Western World the councillors’ response was vehement. They recorded their decision to “protest most emphatically against the libellous comedy, The Playboy of the Western World, that was belched forth during the past week in the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, under the fostering care of Lady Gregory and Mr Yeats. We congratulate the good people of Dublin in howling down the gross buffoonery and immoral suggestions that are scattered throughout this scandalous performance.
For more from the archives see this week’s Tribunes here
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
SLIGO 0-9
GALWAY 1-4
FRANK FARRAGHER IN ENNISCRONE
GALWAY’S first serious examination of the 2013 season rather disturbingly ended with a rating well below the 40% pass mark at the idyllic, if rather Siberian, seaside setting of Enniscrone on Sunday last.
The defeat cost Galway a place in the FBD League Final against Leitrim and also put a fair dent on their confidence shield for the bigger tests that lie ahead in February.
There was no fluke element in this success by an understrength Sligo side and by the time Leitrim referee, Frank Flynn, sounded the final whistle, there wasn’t a perished soul in the crowd of about 500 who could question the justice of the outcome.
It is only pre-season and last Sunday’s blast of dry polar winds did remind everyone that this is far from summer football, but make no mistake about it, the match did lay down some very worrying markers for Galway following a couple of victories over below par third level college teams.
Galway did start the game quite positively, leading by four points at the end of a first quarter when they missed as much more, but when Sligo stepped up the tempo of the game in the 10 minutes before half-time, the maroon resistance crumbled with frightening rapidity.
Some of the statistics of the match make for grim perusal. Over the course of the hour, Galway only scored two points from play and they went through a 52 minute period of the match, without raising a white flag – admittedly a late rally did bring them close to a draw but that would have been very rough justice on Sligo.
Sligo were backable at 9/4 coming into this match, the odds being stretched with the ‘missing list’ on Kevin Walsh’s team sheet – Adrian Marren, Stephen Coen, Tony Taylor, Ross Donovan, David Kelly, David Maye, Johnny Davey and Eamon O’Hara, were all marked absent for a variety of reasons.
Walsh has his Sligo side well schooled in the high intensity, close quarters type of football, and the harder Galway tried to go through the short game channels, the more the home side bottled them up.
Galway badly needed to find some variety in their attacking strategy and maybe there is a lot to be said for the traditional Meath style of giving long, quick ball to a full forward line with a big target man on the edge of the square – given Paul Conroy’s prowess close to goal last season, maybe it is time to ‘settle’ on a few basics.
Defensively, Galway were reasonably solid with Gary Sice at centre back probably their best player – he was one of the few men in maroon to deliver decent long ball deep into the attacking zone – while Finian Hanley, Conor Costello and Gary O’Donnell also kept things tight.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
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