Archive News
“A candidate to bate all”………
Date Published: 16-May-2007
On your side’. ‘The right choice’. ‘The next stepsforward’.
If these slogans sound familiar it’s because they’ve been staring you in the face ever since the elections were announced. Even before Bertie hightailed it to the Aras, great brains at party headquarters and in PR companies were trying to create the slogan that will persuade us
voters to choose their man or woman.
And so, we have been inflicted with a vast riot of pithy sayings that are meant to sum up the greatness of what is on offer.
The only question is, ‘what do they mean?’
When you see FG candidates smiling down at you from a pole with the slogan ‘Fine Gael… on your side’, do you pause to wonder exactly whose side that is.
Could it be those folk who think we pay too much tax? Or those who think we pay too little? Might it be those who feel all criminals should be locked up? Or maybe those who commit crime?
Lordy, it’s hard knowing whose side they are on, given that great catchall phrases that means nothing. Except maybe that FG are spiring to be all things to all people.
A master of that trick is the once Teflon Taoiseach Bertie Ahern whose avuncular image beams down from poles everywhere, accompanied by the strange slogan — ’the next steps forward’.
Now, most ordinary people take the next step forward — singular. But not Bertie. He’s leppin’ to get steppin’. To be fair, he has never shown any great regard for the English language, so why start now?
Galway West FF candidates haven’t opted for individual posters, being happy to go under the banner of ‘Bertie’s Team’ but in the East it’s a
different tale, with Callinan, Kitt and Treacy everywhere. Joe Callinan’s slogan informs us that he is “working for the people, ALL the time’. But, Joe, that’s what people have a right to expect, given your handsome salary.
You’d think that the Greens would eschew wasteful items like posters but they are up there with the rest, telling us that a vote for Niall Ó Brolcháin is ‘the right choice’. Right for who though? The people who
want the Galway Outer Bypass? Maybe not.
Good slogans or bad slogans all require imagination. Labour are sadly lacking in that field, mostly just beseeching us to vote number one for either Michael D. or Colm Keaveney. Let’s hope their policies are not as lacklustre.
Margaret Cox, a born again independent, tells us that there are €3,000 million reasons to vote for her. Assuming that she’s referring to broken government promises, there are those who might raise a cynical
eye. Didn’t she sit in the Seanad for five years without getting too exercised by said broken pledges?
A man who promises us a fresh start is PD East Galway candidate Ciaran Cannon, ‘a new voice, new choice’. Ciaran is assuming that new means better — but others with experience will persuade us that they have most to offer. For instance Galway East Independent Paddy McHugh tells us that’s what’s needed is ‘local vision, national voice’. Him, in fact. According to himself at least..
It’s not easy having to cope with such wisdom. Thankfully our politicians only foist it on us at election time. Thank God it’ll be all over soon and the posters will be taken down, making a ‘a brighter
future for all’ — to coin a phrase!
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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