Archive News
HurlersÕ gut-wrenching exit is as bad as it gets
Date Published: {J}
IT’S 6.34am on Monday morning as I try to gather my thoughts just a few hours after Galway’s exit from the All-Ireland hurling championship. The heart is heavy and the head is tormented to say the least. I am already at the Tribune’s office in Market Street, sitting at my desk, trying to come to terms with probably the most agonizing defeat I have ever suffered as a team manager.
Sleep was scarcely an option the previous night. Having watched a recording of The Sunday Game, I dragged myself to the bed around 1am where I tossed and turned for what seemed an eternity before finally escaping the sheets at 5.45am. Last year was desperate after losing by a point to Waterford in Thurles, but Sunday’s late heartbreak feels worse. We were almost there, only to again suffer late agony.
The easy thing would have been to call the office and take the week off, but I have never yet missed a day’s work due to sporting depression. Driving in the few miles to the Tribune from Rosshill on the outskirts of the city, I couldn’t stop thinking about the players and the management team. They were simply brilliant people to work with, individuals proud to carry the Galway hurling flag, individuals who would do anything for the cause.
Not surprisingly, the Galway dressingroom was a raw place in Croke Park on Sunday evening. Several of us broke down as we publically gave vent to our feelings. It was total devastation; everyone was grieving as the dream of the McCarthy Cup coming West had died for another year. Tears were shed as the camp struggled to come to terms with another big game loss. It could just so easily have been our triumph as Tipperary’s, but when the final whistle blew it was the blue and gold who were celebrating.
Doing a round of TV, Radio and Press interviews immediately after the game was torture. I can’t have been coherent, but I hope I paid due tribute to the players and graciously acknowledged Tipperary’s victory. I was very upset over Niall Healy not being awarded a close range free in the last incident of the match, but there is nothing we can do about it now.
Publically wingin about referees serves no useful purpose. They are out there on their own and have an invidious job. James Ownes certainly let the play go last Sunday but, on balance, I thought we fared slightly worse with the Wexford’s official’s calls. Had he awarded a free to Galway at the death and Joe Canning gone for and scored a match-winning goal, Tipperary would have been entitled to feel that the Gods were completely against them after Diarmuid Kirwan’s controversial decision in the closing stages of last year’s All-Ireland final.
We tend to see only our own side of things, the perceived miscarriages of justice which affect us. There are two teams out there, each chasing their own dreams, and when a titanic match is settled by a solitary point, the gulf in emotions is staggering. In the cold light of day, like 12 months ago, Galway had virtually the match won, but didn’t close the deal. Whose responsibility is that? . . . it’s hardly James Owens’. We have to live with the consequences of that.
Both team captain Shane Kavanagh, what a match he had, and the long serving Ollie Canning, who sort of retired, gave full vent to their despair afterwards.
Listening to them, would tear your heart apart. I looked around the dressingroom and all I could see were men fumbling to keep their emotions intact. I failed that test spectacularly, but I have no regrets. If you don’t care, you shouldn’t be in there.
The team sponsor, Pat McDonagh, drew our attention to the fact that the Galway supporters had given the team a standing ovation trooping off the field. The players were heroic in defeat, had died with their boots on and it’s great to hear that the fans acknowledged that. It won’t make the pain go away, but it’s a small consolation. The Galway hurling team has won widespread respect after a year in which we won 12 and drawn one of our 16 competitive matches.
The Leinster final didn’t go well for us to put it mildly, but the players were determined to show their true colours against Tipperary. At different stages, we fell behind, at others, we went to the front. The outcome was on a tightrope for the virtual 73 minutes and, to be honest, I thought we were there until those late points from John O’Brien, Gearoid Ryan and Lar Corbett. If we had won the match in similar circumstances, we would have been in ecstasy. Tipperary, to their enormous credit, didn’t die. They will be all the stronger for it.
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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