Archive News
Catch it early takes on new meaning for Galway star
Date Published: 07-Jun-2012
ENJOY life. Life is short. Enjoy it,” insists Galway senior footballer, Damien Burke. This is the conclusion the Corofin man has succinctly and painfully come to following his unpleasant courtship with testicular cancer recently. Certainly, it is a mantra he intends to embrace from now on.
For many of those diagnosed with cancer, the shock alone takes a terrible toll but Burke decided to adopt a totally different view when his worst fears were confirmed last December. This stance was not one based on fear or pity but, true to his spirit and courage as a top class athlete, he simply looked upon cancer as another – albeit dissimilar – challenge.
Sitting in the sundrenched stand of Pearse Stadium, Burke – who has selflessly agreed to become the face of Cancer Care West’s ‘Catch It Early’ awareness campaign – tells his story with great humility. Yet, for all that, you can sense the winner in the Galway centre-half forward. Of his determination to succeed . . . be it with Galway, Corofin or in his battle with cancer.
Burke’s thoughts on his illness are somewhat reminiscent of legendary cyclist Lance Armstrong, who wrote in his absorbing book, ‘It’s Not About the Bike’, about his personal battle with the disease. In the book, Armstrong notes: ‘One of the redeeming things about being an athlete – one of the real services we can perform – is to redefine what’s humanly possible.
‘We cause people to reconsider their limits, to see that what looks like a wall may really just be an obstacle in the mind. Illness was not unlike athletic performance in that respect: there is so much we don’t know about our human capacity, and I felt it was important to spread the message,’ finishes the former Tour de France star.
That’s what winners do and, in this respect, Burke is as equal a champion as Armstrong. Self pity! “No, no, why bother?” says 28-year-old, although these days the rejuvenated Corofin man says he feels like 21 again! “Things happen for a reason. You just have to deal with it and move on.”
Although Burke was diagnosed with testicular cancer last December, he knew things weren’t right in the couple of months leading up to receiving the bad news. “I had a fair idea that there was something wrong but I suppose it took a while to go into the doctor. In the end, it was the excruciating pain that made me go in and it kind of all went from there really.”
Burke had braced himself for the worst and, by doing so, he had taken the fear factor out of the equation. “I kind of expected it, to be honest. I just had a feeling it was cancer but I didn’t worry too much because I had been aware of Aidan Donnellan’s and even Ronan McGarrity’s cases.
“Aidan Donnellan is a good friend of mine; he is a club-mate of mine. He is living a happy life now. He has played years of football after his cancer and he has had no problem since. So, you look at the positives really, rather than putting the head down. I had talked to Aidan and he was a great support to me.”
Burke underwent his operation at UHG and within three or four days he was back home recovering again. He has “the height of praise” for the staff at the hospital – “I couldn’t speak highly enough of them” – and he says their help put him at ease with the whole process.
“After I came out of hospital, I was back training in about three weeks,” chirps Burke. “I just didn’t want to hang around. I would be a very active person so I wanted to get back doing stuff and keeping myself busy.
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
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