Archive News
Excellent Elbow show met with ‘Open Arms’ by appreciative fans
Date Published: {J}
Galway based music fans had plenty to enjoy during the summer with some great shows at the Arts Festival.
But those looking for a further festival fix would have been well-advised to make the trip to Belfast’s Belsonic Festival, a series of outdoor concerts which took place between Tuesday, August 16 and last Saturday, August 27. Now in its fourth year, Belsonic takes place in the city’s Custom House Square, which holds up to 5, 000 punters.
This year, there were shows by superstar MC Dizzee Rascal, Liam Gallagher’s Beady Eye, Plan B and, for dance music fans, a set from Tiesto. You could have also partied like it was 1991, when Primal Scream reprised their seminal album Screamadelica.
But on a rainy Wednesday in Belfast, people were out for an evening with Elbow. The Mancunian quintet made the move into bigger venues with the 2008 Mercury Prize-winning The Seldom Seen Kid. Released this year, its follow-up, Build a Rocket Boys confirmed their place as the thinking-person’s stadium band.
But before Elbow took to the stage, there was the minor matter of the support slot from Dublin band Villagers. Lead singer Conor O’Brien recently won a prestigious Ivor Novello songwriting award, and Villagers were also the subject of a special edition of John Kelly’s arts programme, The View on RTÉ 1 television.
As soon they strike their first note, it’s clear that a year of relentless gigging has turned a promising band into an excellent one. The band kick off with Set the Tigers Free and soon win over the crowd, many of whom are hearing Villagers for the first time. O’Brien is an arresting front man, a combination of shyness and swagger. He’s earned the latter – especially with a song as sublime as Becoming a Jackal, the title track of Villagers’ debut. When O’Brien looks out into the crowd and sings “So before you take this song as truth, you should wonder what I’m taking from you/How I benefit from you being here, lending me your ears/While I’m selling you my fears”, there’s no doubting his fearlessness – and talent.
The two new songs that are aired (Grateful Song and The Bells) whet the appetite for the next Villagers album, due sometime in 2012. After Ship of Promises, they left to a chorus of cheers. The rain had held off for their set – as it did for the rest of the evening. To quote the locals, ‘happy days’.
An army of roadies took to the stage, taking off and bringing on gear. Without too much waiting around or ceremony, Elbow came on and launched into their show. They kicked off with a song that declared ‘looking back is for the birds’ – an appropriate statement for an evening that got better with each song.
Although they’re a supreme bunch of players (and this evening they’re backed by a string quartet), an Elbow gig is lifted by the easy-going charisma of front man Guy Garvey. He’s capable of throwing the shapes and hitting the big notes needed for such a show, but at the same time he achieves the remarkable feat of making you feel you’re in his sitting room.
Three songs in, he singles out a raucous bunch of young lads at the front who clearly adore him, chanting his name from the get go. He walks over to them and promises them a rocker; the band then start up Mirrorball, a mellow, slow-burning gem. As the disco-ball casts light across the Custom House Square, people are smiling, at ease in Elbow’s front room.
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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