Archive News
Blind loyalty – one virtue that can fast become a vice
Date Published: {J}
A friend, more gentle than I, pointed out just how violent the talk of the upcoming budget sounds. She’s right: ‘Brutal’ cuts will ‘punish’ the poor, taxpayers will ‘suffer’ in this financial ‘war’. A visitor from Mars would think the Fascists had taken over. If they know what Fascists are on Mars that is, which I hope they don’t. Martians at all would be disturbing enough, let alone Martians who are into Hitler. What an image.
But I digress. Should we really be thinking in these violent term? I’m in two minds. The language is clearly not healing in any way, is being used almost with a relish bordering on the sadistic. Maybe we should, to borrow a phrase from Stephen Colbert and John Stewart’s March to Keep Fear Alive, bring it down a notch. With the courts deciding that governments do actually have to hold elections even when it doesn’t suit them, the end may be in sight for our lords of misrule. If we can’t quite think clearly and constructively yet, we can at least start thinking about being able to think clearly and constructively.
But toning it down now would I think be to let this administration off the hook. The budget is, after all, going to hurt. By God it is. It will feel like falling down two flights of steps into a pitch-black cellar full of upturned broom handles.
The only term I really object to is ‘punish’. Punish who for what? If one thing’s for sure, it’s that the people most responsible for this will suffer the least. Maybe a few corrupt politicians and bankers will lose their positions, perhaps even their liberty. Many more however will sail happily into directorships or pensions bigger than most of us could ever even imagine earning, while people at the other end of the wealth scale who need the support of working health and welfare services – even of working banking services – are in real danger.
Many have already lost their jobs. Some will lose their businesses, some their homes, some even their health. Ordinary people are going to die because of this.
So what exactly are they being punished for? Their only crime was to keep voting for the same old politicians and parties, when deep down they new full well that many of them were steeped in venality and cronyism. And perhaps that was a sort of crime. I just don’t think it merits the death penalty.
It’s strange to think that what they are being punished for is their loyalty. Well and good though, we are too loyal in this country – loyal to a fault. If ever there was a virtue that when taken to excess can become a vice, it is surely this. Loyalty is no virtue in a beaten dog, it teaches our leaders nothing.
If they still reap the rewards for things that their grandfathers did, why should we be surprised if we’ve fostered a political generation whose most significant feature is their own sense of entitlement? Sticking with the same party through thick and thin is only admirable until you realise that it’s the politicians who are getting thicker.
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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