Archive News
Galway hurlers do county proud in classic final
Date Published: 12-Sep-2012
THE All-Ireland hurling final has already been analysed to death – and there will be more intense scrutiny of the match over the coming days – but the only thing that really matters this week is that the Galway hurlers are still standing after an absorbing struggle for supremacy in Croke Park last Sunday.
A relatively inexperienced team and one completely new to the pressures of All-Ireland final day did the county proud in producing another tactically astute, high energy performance which came desperately close to giving Galway their first championship triumph in 24 years.
It was a final they could have won; it was a final they could have lost; but once more Galway’s huge progress this season was underlined by their ability to put Kilkenny on the ropes, only this time the greatest team ever to grace the hurling fields somehow pulled themselves together to launch a storming second-half revival which carried them to the brink of victory.
Ultimately, it took a huge pressure free from Joe Canning to salvage a draw for Galway, but this was a game they did not deserve the lose despite becoming over defensive minded after the interval. The final had everything – highlighted by a magnificent second-half, some superb individual displays, rousing scores and a nerve-wracking conclusion which culminated in the first drawn decider since 1959.
No wonder the hearts of spectators were thumping at the end of the match. There was an automatic sense of anti climax, but as the seconds gave way to minutes and the minutes gave way to hours, all had to acknowledge that it was a privilege to have been at the coalface of a mighty battle. James Skehill’s wonder second-half save and Canning’s superb first-half goal were nearly worth the admission price alone.
There were so many other critical moments in the match that it was hard to keep track of all of them but few of us expected that Kilkenny would again end up in desperate trouble in the opening-half. They had started with the greater purpose, but some early wides unsettled them and twice before half-time the champions trailed by seven points and were scarcely hanging on.
Galway and neutrals had been braced for Kilkenny to hit the ground running with a savage intensity. After-all, nobody does revenge like the Cats but when their early pressure didn’t yield the anticipated scores, it was almost as if the trauma of what they had experienced in the Leinster was coming back to haunt them. Kilkenny were hesitant and once more struggled with the Tribesmen’s ability to create space up front.
To be honest, I thought Kilkenny were gone at half-time even though they had cut the deficit to five points, 1-9 to 0-7. Galway appeared to have the legs of them while key defenders, Brian Hogan and JJ Delaney, were losing their duels with Niall Burke and Canning respectively. At the other end of the field, only TJ Reid really looked threatening for the title holders, though it was already clear that Henry Shefflin, chasing a record-breaking ninth All-Ireland medal, was up for the challenge.
He registered the first score of a tense opening half with a pointed free in the fifth minute, but Kilkenny were soon on the retreat. Andy Smith, not for the first time in the past 18 months, got Galway off the mark with a cracking score before the huge Galway following erupted when Canning broke through for a stunning individual goal after the mobile James Regan had created the opening out of nothing.
Almost immediately, Canning landed a terrific long distance point and with Kilkenny spurning chances from frees and play, they became increasingly rattled all over the field. Even though Jackie Tyrrell was not letting the roving Damien Hayes out of his sights, it ensured the Galway attack had again oceans of space in which to operate in as young Niall Burke, in particular, began to thrive under the dropping ball.
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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