Archive News
Curra West and Loughrea claim national titles
Date Published: {J}
There was success on the double for ladies golf in Galway last weekend with both Curra West and Loughrea picking up titles at the 2011 ILGU Interclub Championships, which were played in Louth.
Loughrea landed the Intermediate Cup thanks to a 3-2 win over Mullingar in the decider, while Curra West cruised to a comfortable 2 ½ to ½ win over Craddockstown in the Junior Foursomes.
Loughrea had a narrow win in the semi-final against Rockmount, who took made a bright start with an early 6&5 win by Jan Lindsay. Cherry O’Connor levelled the tie for Loughrea with a 2&1 win in the second game before Rose Mannion won by 3&2 meaning Mary Verdon’s 2-up victory in game three was enough to take the Connacht champions through to the national final.
The final ended up being played over two days due to the weather conditions, with the match tied at one point apiece after the first day with Breda Lawless winning four holes on the trot around the turn securing a one hole victory for Loughrea to cancel out Mullingar’s earlier win by Brenda Conlon.
Mary Verdon started Saturday morning dormie one up against her Mullingar opponent and duly delivered a 2-up win to put Loughrea ahead, but Mullingar levelled the tie through Miriam MacManus who scored a 3&2 win in the final game, meaning the destiny of the title came down to the final game between Loughrea’s Rose Mannion and Mullingar’s Helen Collier.
The pair were involved in a battle which saw neither side with more than a one hole advantage over the closing nine holes. Loughrea won the 17th to square the match and with the 18th and 19th holes halved, the deadlock was eventually broken at the 20th hole as Mannion produced a regulation par 5 to take the title for the Connacht champions.
Curra West had a more comfortable march to the Junior Foursomes title, easing past Castlecomer 2 ½ to ½ in the semi-final. Martina McDonagh and Ann Fahy recorded a 4&2 win for a first point for Curra West, and that was followed up by Carmel Cunningham and Mary McDonagh recording a 5&3 win for an unassailable lead, which meant the game involving Mary Madden and Mary Kelly was called in as a half point.
It was a similar tale in the final against Craddockstown, although there was little separating the teams at the halfway stage with Curra West 1up in the top two matches and 1 down in the final match.
Martina McDonagh and Ann Fahy paired up to deliver the first point for the Connacht champions with a 3&2 win. They were followed by teammates Carmel Cunningham and Mary McDonagh who scored a 3&1 win in the second game, which meant Mary Madden and Mary Kelly were again called ashore early for a half point.
There was no joy for Loughrea in the Challenge Cup as the team of Anne Regan, tess Callanan, Kathy Newell, Helen Cloonan and Sinead Brady bowed out at the semi-final stage with a 4-1 loss to East Cork, with Callanan and Brady each gaining half a point after their games were called in with East Cork in an unassailable 3-0 lead.
Portumna also bowed out at the semi-final stage of the Minor Cup in what was a surprise defeat, Munster champions Roscrea running out 4-1 winners in a replica of the Challenge Cup result, with both Mary McElroy and Audrey McGrath being awarded a half point each after their games were called in when Roscrea had built an unassailable 3-0 lead, despite the best efforts of Loretto O’Grady, Mark Kelly and Mabel Conroy.
A third Galway side also lost out at the semi-final stage, with Athenry losing 4-1 to East Cork in the Junior Cup, and like the other two Galway defeats, this clash ended after three matches as Ann Marie Mulry, Margaret Lavelle and Teresa Coen all being defeated, which meant the matches involving Marian Hosty and Gina Gilligan were called in as halves.
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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