Archive News
Craughwell boys stun holders
Date Published: 12-Dec-2012
Craughwell 2-14
St. Thomas’ 2-11
Alan Dooley in Athenry
A devastating late scoring burst at the end of a titanic battle saw Craughwell deservedly claim their fourth U-21 A hurling crown at the expense of title holders St. Thomas’ at Kenny Park, Athenry on Sunday. A quickfire brace of goals from Michael Farrell gave Craughwell a decisive lead that not even Conor Cooney’s injury time salvo could overturn.
Cooney blasted two frees to the net to leave just a score between the sides, but the damage had been done to St. Thomas’ chances ten minutes earlier. A contest that was remarkable for the intensity and application of both sides was turning into a duel of the free-takers as Craughwell’s Keelan Cullinane and St. Thomas’ Cooney were the only scorers for 20 minutes of the second half.
A 48th minute effort from Cooney left just the minimum between the sides, and with darkness descending, a replay looked to be the most obvious outcome. But Craughwell had other notions, and when they won a throw in 35 metres from the Thomas’ goal, Cullinane fed corner forward Farrell who had ghosted beyond the cover. The net billowed, the Craughwell fans were in full voice, and the game began to slip away from the reigning champions.
Within three minutes Farrell had repeated the trick, profiting from excellent work by full forward Jamie Ryan to once more fire passed goalkeeper Patrick Skehill, who would have done well to pick out the rocket in the gloom. Craughwell sensed victory was close at hand and added three further points in quick succession to leave a shell-shocked St. Thomas’ side, now nine points adrift, with a mountain to climb.
As Craughwell dropped bodies back, in the hope of protecting Colin Rooney’s goal, they allowed St. Thomas’ pick up enough possession to pepper their forwards with searching deliveries. Twice a raiding forward was dragged to the ground in what must have felt like a never-ending period of injury time for the Craughwell faithful, and twice Conor Cooney rifled through a phalanx of bodies from the 20 metre line, but time caught up with the Thomas’ challenge and the glory was all Craughwell’s.
It was a stunning victory for the underdogs, whose last competitive outing was 34 weeks previously, and is a testament to manager Fergal Healy’s ability to have them raring to go after such a long wait for action. This win was built on a doggedness and determination from front to back to close down the space that St. Thomas’ love to operate in, epitomised by their captain Cathal Greaney and the livewire midfielder Shane Dolan.
Dolan’s energy and workrate were infectious and he got Craughwell off the mark with a peach of a point in the sixth minute. By that stage St. Thomas’ had already engineered two scores of their own through Michael Gleese and Conor Cooney, all of the scores coming from play on an as ideal a day as you can get for hurling in the second weekend of December.
Unfortunately, there were amazingly only four further scores from open play in the game, but this did not detract from the spectacle that kept the large crowd enthralled throughout. A long range Darragh Burke free edged Thomas’ back two in front, but Keelan Cullinane’s first placed ball was on target shortly after for Craughwell.
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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