Archive News
Galway ladies on the right road with new manager
Date Published: 10-Jan-2013
GALWAY senior ladies football may have been on a managerial merry-go-round in recent years, but 2012 County Galway Sports Star Sinead Burke is optimistic that the season ahead can be a good one for the Tribeswomen.
For her part, Burke, who made her senior debut under Pat Costello in 2007, is about to begin the annual voyage under her sixth Galway manager following the appointment of former Cortoon Shamrocks and Caltra boss Barry Downey for 2013.
Six managers in seven years is an incredible statistic and Burke concedes – Gay O’Brien’s three-year tenure in this time aside – the lack of consistency in this area has had a damaging effect on the county’s drive for honours over the last decade.
“Aside from Gay, we haven’t nailed down one manager for any real length of time,” says Burke, who turns 23 next week. “So, that area has been a bit inconsistent. Almost every year, you are going into a new setting, getting to know people and that takes time, especially for a manager.”
Indeed, more often than not, the manager is not appointed or ratified until into the New Year, meaning the players usually miss out on a structured Winter programme. Consequently, it is up to the players themselves to keep themselves in shape until they are recalled. Burkes notes that by this time, Cork, who have won seven of the last eight All-Ireland titles, have already stolen a march.
In any event, Burke, who studied Arts at NUI Galway and is about to continue her studies at St. Patrick’s College, Drumcondra, has a positive outlook for the year ahead and she believes the Tribeswomen can built on 2012 – a year that began in turbulent fashion but finished with an incredible Connacht final victory over Mayo, an All-Ireland quarter-final win over Clare and a first semi-final appearance in seven years.
Although Galway began the 2012 National League with a heavy defeat to Mayo – and ended the group stage with a loss to Fermanagh – victories over Waterford, Clare, Kerry, Cavan and Tipperary secured them a place in the National League semi-final, where they, once again, overcame Clare on a scoreline of 3-6 to 1-10.
In the decider, they faced old rivals and near neighbours Mayo. The outing was not a success as the Tribeswomen suffered a damning 4-17 to 2-7 defeat. It was the clearest indication yet that Galway was losing significant ground on the leading counties.
The fall-out from that defeat was well-publicised. A number of players, included Burke, walked away from the panel leaving manager Con Moynihan’s position untenable. He subsequently stood down and Caltra’s Gabriel Naughton was appointed as caretaker manager for the remainder of the year.
“That [League final defeat to Mayo] knocked a lot of confidence. Things went downhill after that,” recalls Burke. “I suppose, there was a few players who didn’t join the team at the start of the year – for various reasons – but I felt we lacked a bit of experience in the team. I suppose we also didn’t get the best out of the team. There was more in us.
“I just got to the stage then where I wasn’t really enjoying it and I said if I ever reached that day, it just wasn’t worth going. It is not worth turning up to training if you are not going to have a good session. I decided I wasn’t happy with the way things were going, so I took a quick exit. There were four or five of us that weren’t happy,” says the Oughterard native, who plays her club football with Killanin.
However, with the appointment of Naughton, who had a proven track record with Caltra Cuans, the cogs in Galway ladies football began to turn again. As a result, Burke says she and others needed little convincing to return to the fold while experienced players, who had not been part of the process earlier in the year, made a welcome comeback. She notes that not only added extra impetus and motivation but also nurtured a change in attitude.
In addition, Burke says that after the managerial upheaval, the ladies also felt they had something to prove. “There were a lot of harsh comments like ‘these Galway girls are never happy and are hard to please’. So, to a certain extent, we had a point to prove. That we were not playing football just for the sake of doing it. We wanted to win something by the end of the year and, in that respect, it was great to win a Connacht final.”
That provincial showdown turned out to be one of the most incredible games in the history of ladies football. Heading into the final quarter, Galway were ten points down against a rampant Mayo side at McHale Park but three late goals from Geraldine Conneally, Eilis Gannon and substitute Gillian O’Connor turned the game on its head as Galway won out on a scoreline of 4-10 to 1-17.
For more, read this week’s Galway City 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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