Archive News
Blow for Galway as Kilkenny and Healy quit panel
Date Published: {J}
STEPHEN GLENNON
GALWAY senior hurlers – who are due to begin their Leinster championship campaign in just over three weeks’ time – have suffered a setback following the withdrawals of Craughwell sharpshooter Niall Healy and Kiltormer’s Keith Kilkenny from the inter-county panel during the week.
While Kilkenny, who was called up to the squad last winter, had yet to establish himself in the starting fifteen, 26-year-old Healy had been a near-constant for Galway since making his debut against Laois in 2005.
Indeed, Healy enjoyed his greatest hour during that heady championship of ‘05 when he tallied a magnificent hat-trick of goals against Kilkenny in the Tribesmen’s pulsating 5-18 to 4-18 victory over Kilkenny in the All-Ireland semi-final.
Although Galway subsequently lost the All-Ireland final to Cork on a scoreline of 1-21 to 1-16, with the Craughwell man substituted midway through the second half, Healy finished the 2005 championship campaign with a total of 4-4, a creditable tally in his debut season.
To ease the pain of that All-Ireland defeat, however, Healy – a younger brother of former Galway midfielder Fergal – was very much to the fore when Galway defeated Cork and Kilkenny in the All-Ireland semi-final and final respectively in the All-Ireland U-21 championship.
Interestingly, of that All-Ireland winning side, just five are now involved in the inter-county senior set-up, namely David Collins, Aonghus Callanan, Eanna Ryan, Joe Gantley and the recently recalled Kerril Wade. In contrast, no less than 10 of that U-21 Kilkenny have gone on to claim All-Ireland senior titles. Those include John Tennyson, PJ Delaney, James ‘Cha’ Fitzpatrick, Richie Power and Eoin Larkin
In any event, Healy’s withdrawal from the Galway senior set-up is a significant blow to manager John McIntyre and his backroom team. “Niall Healy contacted me as we were returning to training on Monday night and expressed his desire to pull out of the panel,” explained the Galway boss.
“Niall felt he had no longer the passion or the hunger to play inter-county hurling and he was enjoying his time back playing with Craughwell. I asked him to reconsider – that I would give him the time to do so – because it was such a big call, but Niall was firm in his decision.
“Keith Kilkenny pulled out during Tuesday night’s training session. He had just got frustrated with the way things were going for him. He felt there was a gap (to inter-county) that he was struggling to bridge. He had given it everything and he just felt he lacked the pace for inter-county hurling. I admired his honesty and, like Niall, we are sorry to see him go.”
The withdrawal of Healy and Kilkenny comes in the aftermath of five players being released from the Galway squad – namely David Hayes (Kiltormer), John Grealish (Athenry), Brian Murphy (Turloughmore), Joseph Cooney (Sarsfields) and Niall Cahalan (Mullagh) – although the management have since done a U-turn and recalled Cahalan.
“Obviously, we had to make some tough calls when reviewing the squad, but the door is not closed on any player as the Niall Cahalan situation showed,” said McIntyre. “It was a marginal call to initially release Niall, but he responded in eye catching manner by scoring six points from play for Mullagh in the senior hurling championship last weekend.”
There have also been recalls for Sarsfields Kerril Wade, Cappataggle goalkeeper James Skehill and 34-year-old Alan Kerins, who was in sparkling form for Clarinbridge during their successful All-Ireland club campaign, while St. Thomas’ James Regan – impressive against Dublin in last year’s U-21 All-Ireland semi-final win – has also been promoted.
For more, read this week’s Galway City 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
images/files/images/x3_Courthouse.jpg
Families queue up for school’s offer of free house
West has lower cancer survival rates than rest
Galway minors continue to lay waste to all opponents
Gardaí and IFA issue a joint appeal on summer road safety
Marathon Man plans to call a halt – but not before he hits 160 races
