Archive News
Don’t fall foul of the card sharks – because one day is never enough
Date Published: {J}
When the gardaí announce a bank holiday crackdown on drink driving or speeding, there’s a train of thought that suggests this conversely implies there’s a more relaxed approach to checkpoints on ordinary weekends – when of course nothing could be further from the truth.
But the same debate could relate to Mother’s Day – or for that matter Father’s Day or Valentine’s Day – as though there’s only one day in the year when you have to be nice to them. And a bunch of flowers or a bottle of bad after shave allowed you to behave like a moron for the others 364 days of the year.
Of course – with the obvious exception of a garda drink driving clampdown – these are entirely artificial concoctions designed to further the sale of cards and flowers. And we’re eejits for falling into the trap.
You pay the price of a small house for a bunch of roses on February 14 when the same bunch is available for a fraction of that in the forecourt of your average petrol station two days later.
You can buy a three foot card for your mother than tells her you love her and treasure her in a language you wouldn’t use if you were delusional or on heavy drugs, when it reality a cup of tea in bed or a go of the remote control for the telly would have a greater impact.
The only cards that are saved in our house are the ones drawn by little hands and featuring stick insect parents in green crayon – not the all-singing versions that look like they could take on a life of their own.
Flowers are something that miraculously grow in the garden; they are not to be purchased and brought home because, if you were seen coming up the road with a bouquet of roses, you might as well go the whole hog and tattoo ‘guilty’ in big black letters on your forehead.
Meals out should be eaten because you’re hungry or spontaneous – not because Mr Hallmark decided that last Sunday was the day you should dine with your mother, implying that she should be thrilled to have one day off a year from the cooker.
We all get sentimental at different times in our lives and make promises that we’d never have ever dreamed of in the cold light of day.
When our eldest was born, for example – and he now looks forward to revelations about his young life in this column every week, in the way that turkeys look forward to Christmas – I distinctly remember promising to never fight with my exhausted wife again.
And in fairness I think we’ve only had one disagreement since – trouble is, it has lasted 13 years.
But we’re all vulnerable when the ads suggest that this would be the perfect time to show your mother or father you love them by buying a huge card which you must then post to them for the price of a small country’s GDP even though you still only live down the road.
We must stand firm and refuse to conform; we can buy cards or flowers or chocolates any other day we want to during the year. We can eat dinner until we burst, and we can pop champagne like we were Seanie Fitzpatrick – just not on the day that we’re told to.
You should love your spouse, parents, children or dog every day of the year in the same way that, if you take a chance on drinking and driving, you should anticipate meeting a garda around every corner at any hour of any day or night.
So forget these concocted celebrations that are little more than marketing opportunities to flog greeting cards – because when it comes to showing how much you care, one day should never be enough.
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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