Archive News
CupidÕs arrow takes leading archery couple to Galway
Date Published: 07-Mar-2013
IF two of the country’s top soccer players, athletes or boxers decided to settle down in your community, there would – one imagines – be a great deal of fanfare surrounding their arrival. However, for Ireland’s top archer, Stuart Wilson and his girlfriend, current Northern Ireland indoor champion Noleen Lilley, their relocation to the West has been somewhat of a low-key affair.
Speaking to them in their home in Craughwell, the decision taken by the couple – who have just returned from the European Indoor Championships in Poland – to put down roots in Galway seems to be one they are delighted to have made and they are really enjoying their time in this part of the country.
“I was working in England for 12 years, in Oxford, and I decided to come home,” says Bangor native Wilson. “I had never worked in the South before and I decided to move down. So, I got a job in Portiuncula Hospital and lived in Ballinasloe for six months.
“Noleen was a nurse in Craigavon and she took a chance to come down and work here also. So, she is working in University Hospital in Galway. We moved in together into this house (in Craughwell) last Christmas.”
On his arrival, Wilson – who represented Northern Ireland at the Commonwealth Games in 2010 – immediately sought out an archery club and located not one but two in the locality. “I emailed them both and only one got back to me and that was Athenry.”
In many respects, the arrival of Wilson must have been akin to Robin Van Persie transferring to Craughwell United – although with Mike Madden scoring four goals in their Lillis Cup game last weekend, RVP is hardly needed – but Wilson does admit his coming was inconspicuous.
“I tend to keep my head quite low beneath the parapet,” laughs the 37-year-old. “Some of them had heard of me but they weren’t a very competitive club. They weren’t going to competitions, but, then again, I think the club has only been formed in the last year and a half.
“Once I joined, they started going to competitions and all of a sudden I got picked for the European (Archery Indoor) Championships. I have broken three Irish records this year which got me qualified No. 1 and I was picked to go to Poland.”
Interestingly, the Irish team – which included Wicklow archers Robert Hall, Alan Convery and Melaine Lawther – that travelled to Poland last week were all originally from Northern Ireland as was team manager, Wilson’s other half, Lilley. “It was just one of those things,” he remarks.
In any event, it was the Irish team’s best showing – finishing ninth – among the 30 competing nations while Lawther was very unlucky not to take home a bronze medal in the individual events. “She came fourth and she was so close to getting a medal . . . all we could do was shoot to the best of our ability and we did break two Irish records when we were out there. So, we didn’t do too badly,” says Wilson.
It is evident chatting to Wilson that archery is very much part of who he is. Then again, he does hail from a family that has ruled the sport in Northern Ireland for the last three decades, with his father Jack and older brother Lee both winning multiple championships while his younger brother Darrel was on the team with Wilson that represented Northern Ireland at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in India.
Some may recall that those Games received a great deal of media attention as there were fears that some facilities would not be ready to host the showcase, while other facilities were believed to be sub-standard. For his part, Wilson featured in the media after he said he would sleep in a tent if it meant he could compete.
At any rate, the Games did go ahead and Wilson was one of 6,081 athletes from 71 Commonwealth nations and dependencies to compete in the 21 sports and 272 events, making it the largest Commonwealth Games to date.
Of course, Wilson’s globetrotting adventures may paint a romantic picture but he insists the reality is so much different – at least for Irish competitors. “Archery is such a minority sport and there is no money involved or anything.
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
images/files/images/x3_Courthouse.jpg
Families queue up for school’s offer of free house
West has lower cancer survival rates than rest
Galway minors continue to lay waste to all opponents
Gardaí and IFA issue a joint appeal on summer road safety
Marathon Man plans to call a halt – but not before he hits 160 races
