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Galway blow Dubs away

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Date Published: {J}

Galway 3-14

Dublin 1-10

CIARAN TIERNEY AT SEMPLE STADIUM

Hail the men who have delivered a delightful double! A group of boys who have been no strangers to heartbreak and frustration in underage hurling finals really came of age in Thurles on Saturday night as Galway captured their tenth All-Ireland U-21 crown with a comprehensive victory over an outclassed Dublin side.

Six days after the minors enjoyed an equally comfortable victory over the same opponents at Croke Park, this year’s crop of U-21s could hardly have dreamed of putting together such a convincing all-round team performance that a 10 point margin almost flattered the Dubs in the end.

Perhaps Galway supporters have become disillusioned by so much underage promise failing to materialise into senior success for over two decades, but this was a performance to treasure in its own right for the maroon contingent in the 5,352 crowd.

They outfought their opponents from start to finish, winning aerial ball, battling to win ‘dirty’ or 50-50 balls, lodging wonderful long clearances out of defence, and taking their chances with a determination and conviction which put this year’s Galway seniors to shame.

Their battling qualities were epitomised by corner forward and man-of-the-match Davy Glennon when he moved back to help out his full-back line in the dying minutes. The game was well won, but a fired-up Galway never relented and the Dublin challenge was in tatters long before the end.

If we worried about where the goals would come from, they had banished those fears by having three on the scoreboard by half-time. Glennon and James Regan might not have been prominent against Limerick last month, but they were in blistering form here.

And young Tadhg Haran of Liam Mellows might not have been totally on-song with his free-taking, missing four in the first half, but his brave decision to go for a goal from his 10th minute penalty gave the entire team a lift. He had a fine haul of 1-3, including three inspirational scores from play, by the time he was hauled ashore 11 minutes into the second half.

If we worried that rival centre back Liam Rushe, candidate for Young Hurler of the Year, would have a field day then the towering Niall Burke had other ideas. He might not have found the target as regularly as in the semi-final, but Burke battled to keep Rushe out of the game.

If we wondered how the backs would cope, well, it was hard to find one among them who did not come up with an inspirational performance against a shell-shocked Dublin attack. The performances of Niall Donoghue at full-back, Ger O’Halloran in the corner, and Jason Grealish, in particular, were outstanding. These were dream performances in an All-Ireland final from a team who were humiliated on the same stage 12 months ago.

It was some night of redemption for the eight lads who were on the wrong side of a 25 point hammering by Tipperary last year and they settled well into the game, with two excellent early scores from Regan and Haran.

But Dublin were back in front in the third minute, when a long-range effort from corner forward Kevin O’Loughlin came back off the crossbar. Goalie Jamie Ryan batted it away from the danger zone, but Tomas Connolly was on hand to hit the rebound to the net. An O’Loughlin free then gave the Dubs a two point lead.

But the movement of the Galway lads was notable at this stage and captain Barry Daly, who began the game in the full-forward line, produced a storming run in from the left corner only to be hauled down by Dublin net-minder Ger McManus. Bravely, Haran drove the penalty low past the three men on the line, after McManus was yellow carded.

Daly caused havoc in the Dublin defence in that opening quarter and Regan finished off an excellent move involving Conor Cooney, Haran, and Glennon to put the Tribesmen 1-3 to 1-1 ahead at the end of the first quarter.

Clearly, the men in maroon had not been rattled by Dublin’s early goal, as Donoghue, Grealish, and Rory Foy produced a series of inspirational clearances.

O’Loughlin cut the gap to the minimum from a free on the left and then replied to a brilliantly struck Haran score from out near the sideline, but Dublin had to wait until the 23rd minute for their first point from play – a good score under pressure from full-forward Niall McMorrow to level the issue at 1-4 apiece.

 

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

Galway in Days Gone By

The way we were – Protecting archives of our past

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A photo of Galway city centre from the county council's archives

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

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Galway have lot to ponder in poor show

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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.

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Real Galway flavour to intermediate club hurling battle in Birr

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Date Published: 23-Jan-2013

images/files/images/x3_Courthouse.jpg

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