Archive News
County final called off
Date Published: 03-Nov-2009
NEXT Sunday’s rescheduled county senior hurling decider has been called off indefinitely as the fallout from the controversial semifinal clash between Mullagh and Loughrea rumbles on.
County Hurling Board Secretary John Fahey confirmed that Galway’s showpiece event would not take place this weekend at Pearse Stadium, with “ongoing issues arising from the Mullagh and Loughrea game” cited as the reason behind the Board’s decision.
Already, the county final – originally scheduled for Sunday, October 25 – had been deferred after Loughrea sought and were granted a postponement of their semifinal tie on October 11.
However, the fallout from that re-fixed semi-final – which resulted in three Mullagh players receiving 48 week suspensions after referee Christy Helebert reported them for assault – has had far reaching implications.
Although the manner of the one-point defeat initially incensed Mullagh’s playersand supporters, the severity of the bans, including one-month suspensions for two mentors, has spurred Mullagh to pursue other possibilities by which to exonerate the club.
It is understood that Mullagh will accept the outcome of their 0-16 to 0-15 injury time defeat to Loughrea, albeit reluctantly, should the sentences handed down, in particularly to the three players who received 48- week suspensions, be reduced. T
he suspended Mullagh players and mentors will have their cases reviewed by the Hearings Committee of the County Hurling Board tonight (Tuesday), after which the club will consider its position. It is understood that if the suspensions as they stand are upheld, then the club will look to take their appeal further.
“We have to await the outcome of Mullagh’s deliberations,” said Hurling Board Secretary Fahey. “The club are having a meeting on Wednesday night, and we have to wait to see what they will do. Mullagh are meeting with the Hearings Committee on Tuesday night, so I suppose they will be discussing whatever arises out of that on Wednesday.”
Mullagh have a week from yesterday (Monday, November 2) to lodge an appeal, but with their side of the case only being heard by the Hearings Committee of the County Board tonight, the Hurling Board decided yesterday to postpone the final rather than have it shrouded in uncertainty.
“Mullagh have until Friday to lodge an appeal with the DRA (Disputes Resolution Authority). So, there would be no point fixing the county final for Sunday if Mullagh decided to lodge an appeal on Friday,” continued Fahey, who conceded no other date had been fixed.
Meanwhile, Mullagh’s appeal to have the semi-final fixture declared null and void by Connacht Council failed on Friday night. Mullagh had argued that the fixture was not valid as suspended Hurling Board Chairman Miko Ryan had presided over that fixtures meeting.
However, the Connacht Council rejected their appeal, determining that the sanction placed on Chairman Ryan was only “a proposed suspension” as Ryan, who subsequently resigned from his position last Wednesday, had not received official confirmation or had an opportunity to appeal.
This matter will also be up for discussion at their club meeting on Wednesday night.
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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