Archive News
Breaks go against Galway in vital five minute period
Date Published: 03-Oct-2012
Dara Bradley
THE blow of a whistle milliseconds too soon; a fraction of an inch of woodwork; a rush of blood to the head.
Tight margins that will forever colour, and probably sour, memories of Galway’s 3-11 to 3-22 defeat at the hands of Kilkenny in the All-Ireland senior hurling final replay on Sunday.
We’ll never know what might have been but for those three incidents back-to-back in a five minutes helter-skelter spell in the second half of a pulsating showdown.
It was eight minutes after the turnaround, Galway were trailing by five points, 2-5 to 1-13, and Cyril Donnellan, linking with Iarla Tannian and Damien Hayes, scored the goal of the game that sent the maroon and white in the crowd of 82,274 into ecstasy. Crushingly for the Tribesmen, referee James McGrath had blown for a free-in before Donnellan’s strike whizzed by goalkeeper David Herity.
Joe Canning landed the free. One point instead of three. The Portumna man followed it up to convert a sweet sideline cut before linking with Niall Burke and rifling a bullet of a shot goal-bound that agonisingly bounced off the butt of the upright. Kilkenny’s Cillian Buckley scored a point from the ensuing play. A four point swing to the black and amber.
Had Donnellan’s goal stood; had Canning’s effort been just a touch to the left, Galway would have been just a point adrift, 3-6 to 1-13, and who knows what might have been. Instead they were four points down and the momentum had reverted back to Kilkenny. A minute later, a rush of blood to Donnellan’s head led to the Padraig Pearses man’s dismissal for an off-the-ball strike on JJ Delaney.
Everyone knew, with Galway down to 14 men, the game was up by that stage but just to emphasise that fact, Kilkenny picked off the next four scores in succession, stretching their lead to eight points, 1-18 to 2-7, and the match was effectively over with 14 minutes still remaining.
Those five minutes, between the eighth and 13th minute of the second half will haunt Galway over the Winter months but the reality is, five minutes will never win hurling matches, and the truth, unpalatable as it may seem, is that for the best part of the 70 plus minutes, Kilkenny spectacularly out-hurled Anthony Cunningham’s charges.
When asked about those incidents, the Galway management said they were pivotal turning points. Separately, Kilkenny manager Brian Cody, who’d just led his county to its ninth All-Ireland in 13 seasons at the helm, was having none of it.
“It’s pointless talking about that, you know,” said Cody. “I can’t even remember what the score was at that stage but I don’t think there’s the slightest if, but, or maybe about the game or the result and that’s a fact.” Blunt but probably true.
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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