Archive News
Galway Ôwonder womanÕ pushing her body to the limit
Date Published: {J}
SHE has been described as a ‘true super star’, ‘wonder woman’ and ‘bionic woman’ by her friends on Athenry Athletic Club’s website and, indeed, by her peers right across Galway and Ireland. No doubt, these are all apt descriptions of Valerie Glavin, the Turloughmore native who recently set a new Irish record for 24-hour endurance running in Finland.
Saturday afternoon, and Glavin slips quietly out of her business – Quick Cuts Barber Shop in Northgate Street, Athenry – for a chat that at times touches on the bizarre. Simply, it’s not easy to get the head around the notion that any sane person would run around a 400m track continually for 24 hours. How is that fun?
One gets the sense, though, that Glavin is the type of person who can achieve almost anything, once she sets her mind to it. This was reflected in her chosen discipline from an early stage – when she decided long distance running would be her weapon of choice in killing her smoking habit.
“In 2006, I finally stopped smoking and 10 weeks later I ran the Connemara marathon,” says Glavin. “I suppose, I was nearly 30 years of age at the time and it was sort of a mid life crisis. I had done a 10km run the year before, but it didn’t stop me smoking. So, when it came to the following January, I said I was going to do a marathon and that would definitely stop me smoking, because I needed my lungs to do it right.”
Downloading some tips and advice from the internet, Glavin set to work, but, amazingly, she only completed one long run – a 16 mile hike – before undertaking the Connemara event. “Off I went,” she says of that training run, which consisted of 32 laps around Cappagh Park in Knocknacarra. “It took me all day!”
However, she was unperturbed. “Because it was a cure for my smoking, I told everyone and their mother that I was going to run the Connemarathon. So, I couldn’t back out then.” And to her credit, Glavin ran the race in a time of 4 hours 37 minutes.
Later in 2006, she also ran the Longford marathon in an impressive time of 4 hours 5 minutes, although, she says herself, she was disappointed not to break the four hour barrier.
The following year, she spent in Australia – competing in just one race, the ‘Bridge to Brisbane’ – before returning in 2008 to run in a plethora of events, from the Tuam 8km to the national half marathon in Waterford. She also ran the Zurich marathon – in a time of 3hrs 46mins – in Switzerland early in the year before recording another impressive time of 3hrs 23mins in the Dublin City Marathon in late October.
Simply, Glavin was now hooked. She joined Athenry AC – where she received “fantastic advice” – and, on the prompting of Mary Beatty, decided to set herself a new target of the Connemara ultra marathon (39.3 miles) for early 2009. “All through the winter I trained,” she adds. “Six days a week and twice on Wednesdays.”
The work paid off as, much to her delight, Glavin took victory in the event. “It was the first one I ever won and I was on a high for a month after that. I thought then I might be better at the longer distances. Ray O’Connor, who was the Director of the Connemara marathon, later said he was going to put on a 100 mile-race. I said ‘of course I will do it’.”
Starting and finishing in Clifden, Glavin completed the gruelling August run in a time of 18hrs 5mins. “It does take mental strength, but, to be honest, it is more stubbornness on my part,” she says. “I am competitive enough. If I can pass somebody else out, I will. If I think someone is faster than me, though, I will let them off. You have to trust your own ability, but not be too soft on yourself.
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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