Archive News
Connacht delay selection for inter-provincial hurling final
Date Published: {J}
STEPHEN GLENNON
CONNACHT will be seeking their 12th interprovincial hurling title when they face the might of Leinster in this year’s decider at Nowlan Park, Kilkenny on Sunday (2pm).
The last time this competition was run – 2009 – Connacht and Leinster also met in the final, albeit it was in the somewhat more exotic setting of Abu Dubai. In the lead-up to that showdown, Connacht had beaten Munster 2-20 to 2-18, but, unfortunately, the Westerners were unable to replicate that victory when falling to their Leinster rivals on a scoreline of 3-18 to 1-17 .
Although that game took place just three years ago, there are few survivors from the Connacht squad that fielded that day. Indeed, from that Abu Dubai excursion, only Craughwell’s Niall Healy and Sligo’s Keith Raymond featured in the province’s recent 3-19 to 1-15 semi-final win over Ulster, although current Galway midfielder Cyril Donnellan did make an appearance as a sub while Turloughmore’s Fergal Moore did field in the 2009 semi-final.
Raymond, Donnellan and Galway captain Fergal Moore are all expected to feature at one stage or the other this weekend; however, Healy will miss this clash after suffering another setback with a recurring hand injury.
The management is expected to keep the starting fifteen much along the lines as the Ulster game, although with the concluding stages of the Fitzgibbon Cup and a plethora of U-21 club championship games taking place over the coming days, they will not be able to announce their starting line-up until nearer the final.
However, Jamie Ryan should start in goals, with Niall Donoghue, Ger O’Halloran, Tony Óg Regan and Moore likely to backbone the defence. Up front, Eanna Ryan, Damien Hayes and Iarla Tannian should play some or all of the contest, although Niall Burke – man of the match in Galway’s NHL victory over Dublin – is in a race to be fit after picking up an ankle injury.
Again, though, with players like St. Thomas’ James Regan, Pearses’ Cyril Donnellan and Loughrea’s Johnny Coen involved in the Fitzgibbon Cup and others such as Sarsfields’ Joseph Cooney, Gort’s Jason Grealish and Tynagh/Abbey-Duniry’s Paul Gordon committed to U-21 club action, it unsettles Connacht’s preparations for this fixture.
Under these circumstances, you could argue this is a game Galway could do without. Selector Tom Helebert agrees, but adds: “The other side of it is that it is a game that gives us an opportunity to go up against decent opposition and it will be on a higher level than the Ulster game. So, it is certainly worth doing in light of testing the calibre of players we have on the county panel and on the fringe. Some guys haven’t had a lot of game time against tough opposition, but Sunday will be tough. It will be flat out.”
Indeed, he says that it will give players who did not feature in the Dublin NHL match a chance to prove their worth while also giving game-time to those players who may not be at the required level of sharpness just yet. “So, it is back to this being the opportunity that some of these guys need.
“For players like Niall Donoghue and Barry Daly – both fellows who have not done the level of training as everybody else – it is a good chance for them to get more game time at a very competitive level. Niall is just back from Australia while Barry is not long back from a 12-week lay-off with a groin injury. So, it is valuable to us (Galway) in that context and, of course, valuable as we prep for that very important [National League] game against Tipperary in two weeks’ time.”
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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