Archive News
Colm T—ib’n joins top traditional musicians for cancer care charity
Date Published: {J}
Award-winning author Colm Tóibín is on a motorway in the UK, heading to Heathrow for a flight to Cork. Currently writer-in-residence at Manchester University, he will move to a similar post in America’s prestigious Columbia University in January and he has several new books in the pipeline.
But he’s finding time to come to Galway on November 26 for a special reading when he will team up with top traditional performers Martin Hayes, Peadar Ó Riada and Caomhín Ó Raghallaigh, collectively known as 3-Triúr. The event, in the Radission Blu Hotel, is a fundraiser for Cancer Care West.
When Colm Tóibín was invited to take part in an event for Cancer Care West, he raised the possibility of reading alongside the internationally renowned fiddle player Martin Hayes, whose unique interpretation of Irish traditional music has won him fans from America to Japan.
“It’s a dream to be on stage with him,” says Tóibín. “His music was a big revelation to me; he lifted it and did something very interesting to it.”
The fact that composer and multi-instrumentalist Peadar Ó Riada and fiddler Caomhín Ó Raghallaigh – both of whom the writer knows separately – are part of the evening is an added bonus for Tóibín.
“I don’t mind if nobody else comes along,” he says with a laugh. Of course, he’s joking.
“It’d be great if lots of people were there to enjoy the fun.”
The event will be a mix of music and readings, as well as a public interview with Tóibín and Hayes, and a Q & A session with the audience. The author has selected two pieces for the evening – one from a collection of short stories, the other from his acclaimed novel, Brooklyn.
“There’s a story in Mothers and Sons called A Song and it uses the song Dónal Óg. And there’s a scene in Brooklyn where an old man in Brooklyn sings a song.”
These pieces are just about the right length, says Tóibín, who adds he’d rather let the musicians take the spotlight on this occasion.
Wexford born Colm Tóibín started out in journalism in the early 1980s, and was editor of Magill magazine at a time when the now-defunct magazine was a real force in Irish life.
But in the mid 1989s he opted out and started travelling and writing fiction.
“I was young enough to start all over,” he says of his decision. But there was no grand plan.
“I was happy enough ambling along. But the main thing to do is to keep working.”
Books including Brooklyn, The Master, and The Blackwater Lightship have made Colm Tóibín an international literary name today “but it was a very gradual process . . . and it didn’t happen with my first few books. It’s always a bit of a shock to me”.
Currently writer-in-residence in Manchester, he held a post in America’s Princeton University until recently and will return to the US in January to teach in another Ivy League institution, Columbia.
His teaching commitments don’t interfere with his writing, he says. In fact, they help.
“I only teach on Mondays and Tuesdays and at some point on Tuesday I’m a free man.”
That schedule gives a shape to his week.
“One of the problems with being a writer, as well as the blank page, is having no shape to the week. But teaching for two days means I tend to use the other two days pretty fruitfully.”
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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