Archive News
Horses for courses in Galway country pursuits
Date Published: {J}
THE people of Galway, down through the ages, have always had a great love for all things equine – be it racing at Ballybrit, point-to-pointing in Athenry, hunting with the Blazers, showjumping in Connemara or trading at the Ballinasloe Horse Fair.
However, a new equine pursuit has found its way into the heartland of Galway. Known simply as TREC (Tourism Related Equestrian Competition), the sport tests the various abilities of a rider. One test is to guide a horse through a maze-like obstacle course. The second, control of paces, is to walk or canter a horse, like dressage, along a 150metre corridor. The final test is to guide a horse along a route – approximately 12km for beginners – at various paces.
To the fore in raising the profile of TREC in Galway and the West of Ireland is national safety officer, Ollie Kyne, a Roscommon native who works in Medtronic in Galway. A once talented footballer – who looked destined, at one stage, to wear the yellow and blue of Roscommon, having lined out and impressed for St Mel’s of Longford en route to the 1988 All-Ireland colleges final defeat to St Colman’s of Newry – Kyne took up horse-riding after he “destroyed” his ankle playing the game in his late teens.
Since then, though, he has dedicated his free time to equestrian pursuits, the latest being TREC. “It originated in France for tour guides,” explains Kyne, as he sits in the fabulous courtyard of idyllic Raford House in Kiltullagh.
“They created this test to see if they (potential tour guides) could prove if they were capable of bringing a group of holidays makers up through the mountains safely and not get lost. So, that was the origins of TREC in France. It has been running for over a hundred years; it is a long time established.”
That said, the first World Championships, held in France, did not take place until as recently as 1997, while the sport was only introduced to Ireland in 2007. Although the growth of the sport has been slow here this, by and large, can be attributed to its low key induction into the country. That, however, takes nothing away from the sport.
“I suppose, one of the attractions of TREC is that it is very forgiving for new riders,” continues Kyne. “It very much suits a rider who just wants to relax and who likes to see parts of the countryside. We try and get new venues all the time around the country, rural areas where you have access to country tracks and bog roads.
“We have been lucky with the generosity of Coillte and local farmers – they have been brilliant – and we pre-arrange with them for access to their land. Generally, we would walk the headland to get in one gate and go out another gate, often to join up two dead end roads,” he explains.
Currently, TREC Ireland – which has been set up as a limited company, in order to provide full insurance cover for riders and full indemnity cover for landowners – has just over 40 members, although this figure will grow significantly as several new clubs have been formed in recent months.
“We now have small satellite groups set up around the country. The main and busiest ones are Kerry and Cork TREC, Mid West TREC down in Ennis – they do fantastic TREC competitions in that area – and Leinster TREC. New groups, though, are being set up Cavan, Monaghan and Louth and we also have a new group being set up in Waterford and two new groups have just set up in Donegal.
“I have been tasked with getting TREC expanded into the West, especially Galway and Mayo. There is fantastic scenery in the West. There are also brilliant facilities for equestrian, such as the likes of Raford House here. It has brilliant stabling and B&Bs locally,” says Kyne.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Galway in Days Gone By
The way we were – Protecting archives of our past
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
Archive News
Galway have lot to ponder in poor show
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.
Archive News
Real Galway flavour to intermediate club hurling battle in Birr
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
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