Archive News
FF will be looking for at least one new name to rebuild East fortunes
Date Published: {J}
If Fianna Fail in East Galway had sent a ‘Christmas wish’ to Santa, surely it would have been for a reverse in their downward trend in the constituency where they once totally ruled the roost.
It’s an area where they have seen their share of the vote slide consistently in the last three General Elections – followed by disaster in the Local Elections last June. This is, after all, a constituency where Fianna Fail were once likely to use the term ‘heartland.’
They held three Dail seats out of four there only three General Elections ago – Noel Treacy, Michael Kitt and Joe Callanan sitting on Dail seats in a constituency where Fine Gael were admittedly always battling to take one of those three seats.
It’s a constituency where Fianna Fail were once capable of getting well over fifty per cent of the vote – but in the last three General Elections their level of support fell from 48% (1997), to 46% (2002), and 39% (in 2007). And, what will really have set the alarm bells ringing, was a fall to 25% in the Local Elections of last June (a drop of 9%). In Ballinasloe, they are down to one County Council seat out of five, a loss of one seat compared to the 2004 Locals.
In Loughrea, they are down from two seats to one seat out of seven. In Tuam, they did well to hold on to their two out of seven. All of these districts in the East Galway Dail constituency.
Now, I know Fianna Fail in national politics will point to the significant defection in East Galway from FF of Paddy McHugh in the 2002 General Election. That was after FF made a haymes of the selection convention in turning down McHugh as a possible candidate. This was despite an open plea from delegates from the floor of the convention, to add McHugh to the ticket. McHugh stood as an Independent and was elected a TD.
In 2007, Paddy McHugh lost that seat – but Fianna Fail not alone failed to really challenge to get that Dail seat back, to make matters worse from the FF point of view, the seat went to Fine Gael (Ulick Burke securing a gain), and the Fine Gael vote went up almost nine per cent – to the point where they were running at 39 per cent, level with Fianna Fail.
As I said last week, many of the potential East Galway line-up for FF in the next General Election were present on the day when the new motorway stretch between Ballinasloe and Galway was opened.
Obviously, outgoing TDs Noel Treacy and Michael Kitt, were there, but also potential Dail candidates like Councillor Michael Connolly, and Councillor Mary Hoade – both of whom had to change their council area in the Local Elections, following a revision of the electoral areas, but both of whom came through the trauma to take their council seats in the Tuam district.
Another at the motorway opening was possible newcomer to the FF ticket for the General Election, Councillor Tomas Mannion. He survived the near FF wipeout in the Ballinasloe area. Both he and Councillor Michael Connolly would be competing primarily for votes in the Ballinasloe area, where Fianna Fail have taken a hammering since Joe Callanan lost his Dail seat in 2007.
This is also the area where Fine Gael have found a hell of candidate in Ballinasloe Cardiologist, Dr. John Barton, who took nearly 5,000 first preferences on his first attempt at the Dail and was a key player in Fine Gael gaining a seat in 2007.
Even though Fianna Fail have had a strategy of nominating the minimum number of candidates in recent years, in an effort to keep their vote ‘tight’ and maximise transferring between their candidates, they will have a vacancy anyway on the list of East Galway candidates whenever the next General Election comes along, because of former TD Joe Callanan, essentially, dropping out of politics since he lost his Dail seat in 2007. Callanan was on the FF ticket in 2007 with Noel Treacy and Michael Kitt.
After 2007, there was some pressure on Joe Callanan to possibly ‘save the FF bacon’ by standing in the Local Elections in the Ballinasloe area in 2009, but my impression is that Callanan may have had enough – especially when he failed to get one of Bertie Ahern’s Taoiseach nominations to the Senate after the 2007 General Election, despite decades of Callanan family service to Fianna Fail through Joe and Johnny Callanan.
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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