Archive News
Callanan hopes hours on road is route to success
Date Published: {J}
STEPHEN GLENNON
If Clarinbridge captain Paul Callanan spends any more time with his own thoughts, he could well become one of the world’s finest philosophers.
For over a year or more now, Callanan has been making the long trips from Dublin for training, with just his thoughts and the car stereo to keep him company. At times, especially on those long, harsh Winter nights, it has been a lonely station.
“Yeah, I am still in Dublin . . . for my sins,” adds the affable property surveyor. “That said, the commute gets easier and easier with the more games you win. It definitely gets easier. I suppose, I have made my own track going up and down from Dublin to Galway, with all that coming and going.”
Indeed, Callanan, at this stage, could have singlehandedly paid for the toll bridges at Enfield and Cappataggle. “That is for sure,” he laughs. “Certainly, I have left enough rubber on the roads. Things could be worse, however. I could be stuck up in Dublin with nothing else to do.”
Thankfully, it’s quite the contrary as the 23-years-old captain looks to Croke Park today. While some may say that never in their wildest dreams did they think they would get an opportunity like this – a crack at an All-Ireland club hurling title – Callanan, for his part, has harboured the ambition ever since Clarinbridge’s last appearance in a national decider almost a decade ago.
“I was only a nipper back then, but I remember being in Thurles on that very day when they came up short against a very strong and seasoned Birr team,” says the Clarinbridge captain. “I think, maybe, the experience stood to the Birr lads, but hopefully those same experiences will stand to our lads now, because we still have a couple of those guys involved.
“Obviously, it was very disappointing that day and we are still chasing that first elusive All-Ireland title. It was an experience for the club to be there (in 2002); it was such a big occasion. It definitely had a knock-on effect on me, and, hopefully, it will be the same for the younger members of the club when they see their friends, family and neighbours playing at the highest level on St Patrick’s Day.”
In many respects, that’s the beauty of it. There is not, for want of a better idiom, that ‘natural distance’ that exists between county players and their followers in the club scene. Quite the opposite. Those from the ’Bridge who turn out to support their own today will be tied by blood or friendship. That’s the way of the parish.
“It is brilliant for the entire parish,” beams Callanan. “There is no better feeling than playing for your club at any level really. It is a huge honour. We are just glad to be in this position and very fortunate to be here. At the end of the day, though, we have to treat this as just another game; we don’t want to be getting too carried away with any kind of hype.”
However, for Callanan and those who have soldiered with up along the grades – such as Eanna Murphy, Eoin Forde, Barry Daly and Conor Forde – a victory in today’s All-Ireland decider would represents a triumph of biblical proportions.
“We never won anything really (coming up through the underage ranks),” he notes. “At U-16, we did win an A2 county final alright (2002), but that was pretty much the height of it. We were very unlucky to come up a little bit short at minor level, losing out at county semi-final stage in the ‘A’ competition two years in a row. Then, at U-21, we lost out in a replay in the county final – it was deferred a year on from when it was supposed to be played – against Sarsfields (2008).
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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