Archive News
Galway lay down a positive marker for season ahead
Date Published: 27-Feb-2013
GALWAY more or less got what they came looking for at Pearse Stadium last Sunday. Apart from issuing a timely reminder to Kilkenny that the Tribesmen remain the single biggest threat to their unprecedented dominance of the All-Ireland championship, they are starting to plug a couple of vital gaps in their team as well as laying a major platform for a significant cut at winning the National League title.
It was a productive day’s work in front of a big attendance and while Galway weren’t flawless and you could argue that Kilkenny were marginally the better team over the 70 minutes, the fact is that Anthony Cunningham’s squad appear extremely focussed and determined to build on last year’s significant progress with team captain Fergal Moore, for instance, displaying a cutting edge one doesn’t normally expect in February.
Moore attacked anything that came his way as if his life depended on it and though Aidan Fogarty may have slipped him for a couple of points, the Turloughmore player typified Galway’s intent on the day.
They fought hard for everything in a competitive battle with a two goal burst in just over a minute in the opening quarter just about managing to keep them at arm’s length from Kilkenny from there to the finish.
Huge interest centred on the display of Joseph Cooney in the number six jersey and he certainly confirmed the good impression he made in Tullamore the previous weekend with an authoritative effort at the heart of Galway defence which he rounded off with a superb match-clinching point from inside his own half five minutes from the end.
Cooney’s reading of the game and security under the dropping ball were a highlight of the game, together with strong contributions from goal-scorers Davy Glennon and Damien Hayes up front.
Naturally, not everything worked for Galway. Iarla Tannian was somewhat off the pace in midfield, Niall Burke’s bouts of inaccuracy resurfaced again while Jonathan Glynn, though typically honest throughout, struggled when the ball hit the ground and didn’t make the hoped-for impression under the puck out either – admittedly, however, it was a tactic Galway over-used on the day. Deploying Glynn on Tommy Walsh was an obvious move, but the long serving Kilkenny half back was in no mood for dispensing favours.
Though a little vulnerable and prone to fouling when ran at, the Galway defence as a unit certainly wasn’t found wanting. Goalkeeper Fergal Flannery was alert and made a timely second-half save from Richie Hogan, while Kevin Hynes, Johnny Coen, the swashbuckling Niall Donoghue and David Collins, who scored a mighty long distance point, were all in the zone. Midfield, however, was a troubled area despite some good moments, including the opening score, from Aidan Harte, but a couple of his deliveries were intercepted due to a needles low trajectory.
In attack, Glennon was again brimful of energy and looks here to stay on Sunday’s evidence. He took his goal with the minimum of fuss, might have had a second one, and generally proved a handful for a Kilkenny defence which was below its best with Jackie Tyrell, in particular, lacking his normal level of intensity, most notably in the tackle.
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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