Archive News
Galway squad duo Hegarty and O’Shea eager to make impact at Euro U-19 finals
Date Published: {J}
STEPHEN GLENNON
GALWAY City teenagers Jennifer Hegarty and Conor O’Shea will both hope to make their mark when they travel to take part in the European U-19 Squash Championships at Sport Park Pilatus Kriens in Lucerne, Switzerland this coming week.
Getting underway on Saturday – and running to Sunday, April 24 – the championships will host approximately 120 players from 20 countries across the continent. In the opening rounds, Hegarty will face Marina De Juan of Spain while O’Shea has been paired against Remo Handl of Switzerland.
No doubt, these are exciting times for the duo and, in particular for Hegarty, as she endeavours to juggle her squash and Leaving Cert. commitments.
Hegarty, though, will travel to Switzerland in high spirits, having defeated the equally promising Elaine Ware in the Irish U-19 squash decider, on a scoreline of 3-1, at her home club, Galway Lawn Tennis Club recently.
This was Hegarty’s first win over Carlow girl Ware and it couldn’t have come at a better time. “It should be good, but it is going to be tough,” says the Newcastle girl of the upcoming championships. “A lot of the other countries are better than Ireland, generally. Last year, we finished 13th, so hopefully we can break into the top 10 this year.”
With both individual and team events taking place in Lucerne, Hegarty – who also represented Ireland at the Europeans in Vienna, Austria last year and, previously, at the U-15 Home Internationals in Leeds three years ago – says it is imperative she performs to the best of her ability.
“I hope to go to the Worlds this year, and represent Ireland. Maybe next year, then, I would like to go on the pro circuit and see what it is like. The Worlds, though, are on in (Harvard University, Boston) America in July (20th to 30th) and there will be a team of five girls going to that.”
However, despite being the Irish U-19 champion, she says that still does not guarantee her seat to the United States. “You still have to earn the place because they (Squash Ireland) might, instead, bring the younger players to give them experience. So, I have to do well at the Europeans,” insists the 18-year-old Yeats College student, who hopes to study PE teaching at third level later in the year.
In addition to the coaching she has received from GLTC’s Edwin Brennan and David Noone, Hegarty has also received advice from top class squash players, John Rooney and Arthur Gaskin.
“Yeah, I got some coaching off John a few times. It was really good and I learned some new things,” she says. “I also got some coaching from Arthur Gaskin, who is now the Irish No. 1. That was really, really good.”
Daughter of former Ireland tennis player Donal and Martina Hegarty, the multi-talented teenager has also played Gaelic football with St. Michael’s, hockey with Galway Hockey Club and soccer with Salthill Devon.
That said, her sporting priority these days is squash and when she travels to the championships, alongside Conor Lavin, Michael Stewart, Ware and, of course, O’Shea – who was on the Irish boy’s team that took part in the World Junior Championships in Ecuador last year – Hegarty will be hoping that both she and Ireland can improve on previous showings.
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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