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College years are the touchstone for the rest of your life

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College reunions come in many shapes and sizes – and like buses you can wait forever for one of them and two come along at once. So it was last weekend that, the night before the Alumni of NUI Galway marked the successes of another half dozen of their most famous sons, we had a quieter gathering of our own past-pupils in Dublin.

It was 29 years since the dozen of us had been under the same roof – back when we were aspiring young journalists at the College of Commerce in Rathmines – and we’d been a long time talking about meeting up.

Truth was that, even though we all still worked in various strands of the media, we hadn’t really been in touch over the three decades that have almost passed since we exited out the front doors of Rathmines College and into the workforce.

The small turn-out for the reunion can be best explained by the fact that we were only 25 in number when we started out in 1981, and we were down the guts of ten more by the time it came to finishing our two year certificate course.

And so a dozen of a turn-out was quite impressive – and the enthusiasm of all was unbridled.

The years had seen hair recede in the same proportion as girths increased, but we recognised each other straight off and quickly established that one marriage and two and a half kids was the average return for 29 years of life since.

A night later, NUIG Alumni and staff gathered in droves – 450 of them as opposed to our motley crew – with a few of us interlopers who were lucky enough to be invited as they honoured six of their most famous sons in their annual awards ceremony in the confines of the wonderful Bailey Allen Hall.

Every year, the Alumni Awards throws up another handful of high achievers who have made a real difference in the world – and yet who are sufficiently proud of their association with their old alma mater to understand the depth of the honour that is bestowed on them.

The fact that every one of them refer to it as UCG only shows they should never have changed its name in the first place, but that too is history now.

But whether it’s UCG or NUIG, the fact remains that this venerable institution has educated world leaders in so many fields – it’s something that the city as a whole can be very proud of.

Because these are pillars of industry like Bord na Móna CEO Gabriel D’Arcy, Cisco GM Michael Conroy or Eli Lilly (ROI) MD Dr Gerald Farrell.

They are medical pioneers like Dr Brian Griffin of the Cleveland Clinic, or icons in our own business of journalism like Irish Independent Education Editor John Walshe from Forster Street, who was proudly surrounded by his family for a special homecoming and an acknowledgement of someone who proves that good, incisive reporting and analysis can make a difference.

Not surprisingly the biggest ovation on Saturday night was reserved for Sports Achievement and Leadership Award winner Colm Murray, the hugely popular RTE sports presenter who is fighting a courageous battle with Motor Neuron Disease, armed with his indefatigable sense of good humour and supported by a tremendous family.

Here is a man who has seen great sporting days and who has painted vivid pictures of those occasions for the rest of us who only get to see them on the box. But, whether you think of Cheltenham or USA ’94, he has never been more poetic than he was on Saturday night as he talked of his days in Galway, of the camaraderie on campus, of the grounding he received that has served him so well through life.

The point about all this, is that we should never forget where we came from because it makes us who we are. And this isn’t just about those of our generation who were lucky enough to go to third level at a time when it wasn’t the norm – it’s about holding on to the friends and the values that you had in your formative years because they are the touchstones for the rest of your life.

Whether you were lucky enough to attend an historic old university like UCG or a fledgling institute like the College of Commerce, you can take pride in your association and pick up where you left off with old friends because you shared a time in all of your lives that leaves an impression that lasts forever.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

Galway in Days Gone By

The way we were – Protecting archives of our past

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A photo of Galway city centre from the county council's archives

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

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Galway have lot to ponder in poor show

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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.

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Real Galway flavour to intermediate club hurling battle in Birr

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Date Published: 23-Jan-2013

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