Archive News
Clarinbridge can withstand fierce effort from Gort
Date Published: {J}
STEPHEN GLENNON
REIGNING county and All-Ireland club champions Clarinbridge face their stiffest test to date in the defence of their two crowns when they meet a strong Gort side – seeking their first senior title in 28 years – in the county decider at Pearse Stadium on Sunday (2:30pm).
Given the respective showings of the teams in the 2011 championship – each have only lost one game in the group stage – this promises to be an absolutely cracking contest between two sides that promote all that is good about club hurling.
For the champions’ part, they have posted a solid campaign so far, with the only blip a shock 3-13 to 1-11 defeat to Turloughmore in the group stages. Despite that loss, they still topped Group C with wins over Sarsfields, St. Thomas’ and Castlegar to advance to the knockout stages, where Mullagh awaited them in the quarter-finals.
It was in this Autumn fixture that the credentials of the ‘Bridge were most seriously tested. Although Mullagh scored in injury-time to send the tie to a replay, Johnny Lee’s outfit was forced to dig deep in the closing stages to come from behind to keep alive their aspirations of back-to-back titles. They subsequently won the replay on the comprehensive scoreline of 2-14 to 0-10.
Still, it was their performance against local rivals Craughwell in the semi-final that has suggested they may be just hitting peak form at exactly the right time. In the first half alone, all six of their starting forwards found the target as the ‘Bridge led 0-9 to 0-6 at the half-time break. They finished the contest as 0-18 to 0-13 winners.
“We were happy to get through to the final,” says Clarinbridge manager Lee who, aside from a few niggly injuries, looks to have a full complement of players for the decider. “Craughwell put up a stern test, as we expected, and we were just hoping we could get the scores, which we did, to swing the match in our favour. That said, we do have good forwards and it is always a big help when there is such a spread of scorers throughout the team in a game like that.”
Indeed, Clarinbridge wore the mantle of All-Ireland champions superbly in that penultimate tie, playing with a flair and confidence one associates with a team at the height of its powers. However, Lee insists one of the most impressive attributes of his players is that they take nothing for granted and that has been central to their bid for back-to-back titles.
“Since the All-Ireland and the commencement of the current campaign, the ambitions, all along, have been kept fairly modest,” continues Lee. “The players have never looked beyond the next game. There is a maturity there where they take just every step as it comes and it has been this approach that has seen them through to the county final.
“So, we have never discussed that issue [back-to-back titles] specifically. This is a very focused group of players and the mantra [just taking it one game at a time] has worked well for them. As I said, they have never looked too far ahead and the most important game for them has always been the next one. And after that, it has been the next one again.”
In any event, 2008 finalists Gort now stand between them the club’s third Tom Callanan Cup. “Gort are a very formidable outfit. They have won a couple of U-21 titles in the last few years [2009 & 2010] and, to be fair, they are the favourites of many people at this stage. It has come together well for them, in particular against Loughrea in the quarter-final and St. Thomas’ in the semi-final. There is no doubt in my mind, that they are a very good team, one that can create and take their chances.”
For Clarinbridge’s part, he says they will approach this as just another game but, if anything, the Clare native has become a master of down-play over the course of this championship. In this respect, his succinct management of various issues – such as the senior players’ loss of the trip to Australia and now the fact his charges have to take to the field for the fifth week in a row – has been excellent.
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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