Archive News
From competitive tiredness to Millennium Madness
Date Published: 06-Jan-2011
I bumped into an old friend over the Christmas who was filled with equal measures of unbridled joy and sleep deprivation because his wife had given birth to their first baby four months earlier.
The joy was natural and understandable because your first born completely changes your world. And apart from the fact that you really do believe no one ever had a child before you, those parents of a slightly older vintage will allow the newcomers their first flush of fatherhood.
The sleep deprivation, however, is the one thing that those more experienced parents most certainly do not miss; the 4am feeds, the teething, the colic, the chest infections – although obviously not all at the one time – combine to bring a reality check to this new life.
In our house we used to call it competitive tiredness, because whatever few minutes of sleep one of us had snatched the previous night, the other could half that and then some.
So it was with my friend with the new arrival now, because he was bang in the throes of this phase when he seemed to think that his wife abandoned all mothering duties the minute he arrived home from work.
“She’d have me bathe the baby and eat my dinner at the same time if she could; in actual fact, I think she cannot see any reason why I don’t eat my dinner on the bike as I’m cycling home so that I have nothing other than minding the baby to do when I arrive home,” he told me.
And I smiled knowingly and remembered how it once was – and how it had all changed.
Last week, after the final day of school before the Christmas break, that same first born – now almost a teenager – was attending his second disco in Leisureland as I waited in the sub-zero temperatures looking out on Galway Bay.
For some reason that’s lost on me, they called these gatherings Millennium Madness. Maybe they began in 1999⁄2000 which might explain the millennium part. And ten minutes spent watching the teenage girls making their way in or out would explain the madness.
Togged out like they were heading for a beach party – and on the basis that they were at least eight years older – they wouldn’t be any less suitably attired for the winter weather if they were buck naked and wearing flip-flops.
The boys, about three years behind them on the developmental front, are casually dressed in jeans and tee-shirts – for them too coats are for wimps – but the girls are kitted out like something you’d meet on a street corner in Amsterdam. I’ve never been to Amsterdam.
Hot pants, tops that are barely there and more make-up than a Clarins plant, they look like they’ve come from one of those Miss Teen America contests and forgotten to bring a coat with them on their way.
In fairness, the organisers of these events leave nothing to chance and the level of supervision should set every parent’s mind at ease; until the event is over at midnight, your child is in their care – and then they burst out onto the prom like some horror movie version of Glee.
As I sat there waiting for the doors to open and the next generation of Ireland’s leaders to come bolting onto the streets, I thought of the sleepless nights of 1998 when the cause of my insomnia was lying and crying in a cot at the foot of the bed – and I knew now that my sleepless nights for the next ten years would be caused by something very different and entirely out of my control.
We have a second fella coming through the ranks who never got a fraction of the attention his brother received as a baby – and who will no doubt thrive in the Millennium Madness pit when his turn comes in two years time.
I know of parents who smile as knowingly at the disco experience as I do at the tales of new-born highs and lows – and they spend their weekends waiting for the inevitable call at three in the morning for a lift home in the free family taxi.
But it only seems like yesterday that Salthill’s disco scene was mine – Twiggs, Whispers, the Holiday, the Oasis – and now I’m waiting in the car, having passed on the baton.
So sleep deprivation comes in many guises it seems – it begins at childbirth and with a bit of luck ends the day you stand, eyes glistening, and applaud them down the aisle.
See also Amazon’s plan to end bad presents on page 13 of this week’s Tribunes.
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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