Archive News
Galway Outer Bypass topped list in tests to establish value for money
Date Published: {J}
I won’t hold my breath for the work to start on the Galway Outer Bypass – but if TD Brian Walsh can wring a promise from the Cabinet ‘tough guy’ Leo Varadkar that the scheme will be included in the national plan to be announced next month, then there is real hope.
They won’t just elect Brian Walsh, they might canonise him if the road goes ahead and takes the misery out of life for so many motorists. The undertaking Minister Varadkar has given is that the Galway Outer Bypass is one of the key schemes as far as the government is concerned.
Mind you, the government won’t be funding the major plan costing hundreds of millions, those days are gone when the money was sloshing about the place. The most likely financing is through public-private partnership and that the road will be tolled.
The word from Deputy Walsh is that the Galway Outer Bypass was the one which came out on top in tests applied comparing its costs with its efficacy. It came out on top in any number of categories … but surely, the one most glaringly obvious is the fact that thousands of cars per day make their way unnecessarily through Galway city and at enormous cost in both petrol and patience to Galway and other rmotorists.
Brian Walsh also got confirmation of the degree of priority for the Galway Outer Bypass in a communication from National Roads Authority boss Fred Barry. Said Fred Barry: ”The importance of the scheme is undiminished and we fully share your objective of delivering the scheme as soon as possible.”
Now we know there is a government commitment to building the new road – linking the new Dublin motorway to a new crossing of the River Corrib on the Moycullen side of Glenlo Abbey Hotel – but the real trick is going to be extracting the plan from the legal and planning morass in which it is now bogged down.
This scheme has been fourteen years ‘on the go’ now, and at the moment is stuck between courts here and in Brussels. This part of the plan got planning permission but the permission was appealed to the Irish High Court, then the Irish Supreme Court. The Irish Supreme Court is awaiting guidance from the European Court of Justice on the issue of environmental concerns and how they should be considered.
Deputy Walsh said this week he would continue to press for progress on the Outer Bypass and he hpped there would be an early ruling from the courts so that, at least, the legal wrangle would be resolved. He said that the scheme had come out of top in tests as to its cost, efficiency, etc, and the government were committed to announcing the Outer Bypass would be part of the national plan, even at a time when other schemes were being cut.
Meanwhile, there seems little doubt that a ‘debate’ will now open on why it has to be a toll road, but we have been down this road before … the days of billions washing about are gone for good, and my instinct tells me that drivers will pay a toll rather than spend an hour travelling a few hundred yards.
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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