Archive News
Henry the Eighth proves that dreams can come true
Date Published: {J}
Sometimes in life you’re lucky – and sometimes you just make your own luck, as with the makers of a wonderfully enjoyable documentary that went out on RTÉ last week, tracing the extraordinary story that ended with the President of the United States shaking hands with all-comers on the streets of a small Offaly town.
The Road to Moneygall isn’t just the story of a President re-uniting himself with distant Irish roots in the run-up to a re-election campaign – it’s about a man who had a dream and turned it into reality.
Only this wasn’t Barack Obama’s dream; it was the vision of his eighth cousin Henry Healy, who – in other circumstances – might have seemed a small bit touched, given his fairly loose links to a man who would be king.
As the opening narrative put it, in 2007 a tentative link was established between a tiny village in Co Offaly, a relatively unknown Senator from Chicago and a 22 year old plumber’s clerk who dreamed of bringing those two places together.
The reason they can tell this story is that the producers too bought into the dream, and the team from Macalla Teo were there to record every step along the way – from the first signs of Obama-mania through to the Democratic nomination to the White House and finally to Ollie Hayes’ crowded bar.
It was because they shot so much footage before anyone even thought Obama might make it all the way that meant this was so much more than a ‘cut and paste’ documentary to tie up the loose ends of a day that Moneygall, Offaly and Ireland will never forget.
And if the Chicago Senator himself had the drive to make his dream a reality, then the apple didn’t fall far from the tree when it came to Henry Healy either.
Right from the first bizarre Obama fundraising night at the dogs – complete with the local soccer team racing each other around a track normally reserved for dogs – Henry had the belief that his distant cousin would one day come home.
Even after his trip to the Presidential inauguration, his words were prophetic: “I don‘t think the journey will end until Moneygall gets to have its long-long ancestral son back home … just for one day, just for one hour.”
Another man might have been afraid he’d be held up to ridicule over such outlandish promises, but it seemed that everyone in Moneygall liked Henry Healy. And if he wanted to go on about his cousin ad nauseum, sure what harm was in him?
But then Enda Kenny went to bring his shamrock to the White House last March, the President decided that he wanted to see the land that his ancestor Falmouth Kearney had left in times of another recession – and now the dream was within touching distance.
But suddenly everyone wanted a piece of the action and Obama had more Irish connections than the IMF – so Henry and his team had to protect their prized asset.
And if Henry was the star, then he had a strong supporting cast led by the local Church of Ireland vicar Stephen Neill and the cute hoors known as the Corrigan Brothers and their ditty about there being no one as Irish as Barack Obama.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Sentinel.
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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