Archive News
Death of Diana ÔindustryÕ just grinds on and on
Date Published: {J}
Difficult to believe that it is fourteen years since Princess Diana died in the crash in the tunnel in Paris. It is one of those moments for most of us when we can remember where we were – a bit like the assassination of John Kennedy.
In the case of Diana, in the meantime, just about every trick-o’-the-loop appears to have had an opinion about her death, or made a few euro, out of the memory. Those dreadfrul mugs with portraits continue to sell like hot cakes in London.
I was in London within two weeks of her death and the mood outside of Kensington Palace, with its enormous numbers of bouquets and tributes, was clearly of ordinary people taking control of a memory, even if it was a ‘folk memory’ and had an analysis that did not quite bear examination.
Variously she was being described as ‘the people’s princess,’ but I am always just a little suspicious when the people coining phrases of memory for anyone range from the tabloids, to street sellers of those selfsame commemorative mugs.
The tortured soul who emerged from books with which she – foolishly – co-operated and some of the television programmes with which she was involved, were indicative of someone immensely complex – a bit like the rest of us – and who might, betimes, have been better advised.
Someone, some day, may write the deifinitive history of her relationship with the press and, especially, with the papparazzi. She seemed to flit from simply performing for the latter to the point where she played a game of tag with them . . . as on the fateful night when she met her death in that tunnel crash.
In the case of the jackals from the papparazzi, the game played up-close-and-personal when it seemed to suit some crazy thought she entertained that this could just be switched on and off, and then switched to the kind of journalism which involved long-lenses and a wish on her part to be left alone.
Last week, just to show that what I call ‘the Diana industry’ is still grinding on, they ran a programme on TV3, which I presume originated in the ITV system somewhere, and which dubbed itself ‘Diana – The Witnesses in the Tunnel.’
The programme promotional material which was screened ceaselessly in the preceding days, seemed to promise that there would be new evidence as to precisely what went on in the Paris tunnel on the fateful night.
Instead, what we got was rehash of the variety which now seems to crop up all time time in a medium which consumes material with a voracious appetite. It’s the reason that channels have taken to picking what one might term harmless and utterly irrelevant pieces of information and building an hour-long programme around them.
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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