Archive News
Improving Mervue United hit jackpot
Date Published: 03-May-2011
MERVUE United bounced back from three defeats to register a first home league win since the club returned to Fahy’s Field and, in the process, ended high flying Monaghan Utd’s unbeaten start to the First Division campaign.
Johnny Glynn’s side certainly didn’t look like a team short on confidence as two Jason Molloy strikes and another from defender Eric Browne ensured another bad day in Galway for Monaghan Utd as they ended the game with just nine men.
The home side got off to the perfect start as they hit the front with just five minutes on the clock. Rory Gaffney and Mark Ludden exchanged passes before the latter fed Molloy who cut inside Aiden Collins before unleashing a low drive into the bottom corner past a helpless Gabriel Sava.
Mervue almost doubled that lead as Tom King struck an effort just past the visitors’ post, while Dan Cunningham’s dangerous low ball across the face of the Monaghan goal failed to find a Mervue player.
Roddy Collins side found themselves level on 18 minutes when an attempted back pass by Browne fell kindly into the path of Declan O’Brien and he lobbed Ger Hanley for his sixth goal in five games.
Browne atoned for that error eight minutes later as he finished off a fine move involving Gaffney and Ludden to put the home side back in front.
Mervue continued to take the game to Monaghan and Gaffney saw his header brilliantly pushed around the post for corner by Sava just past the half hour mark following a right wing cross from King.
On the stroke of half time, King got away down the right again and his cross picked out Ludden who headed straight at Sava as they ended the period on the attack.
The home finally doubled their lead ten minutes after the re-start when the impressive Gaffney played in his strike partner Molloy, and he held off the challenge of two defenders before blasting the ball past Sava at his near post for 3-1.
Eight minutes later and Monaghan’s Paul Whelan received a straight red for retaliation following a foul by Molloy near the touchline.
Molloy should have had his hat-trick on 66 minutes when Mike Tierney set him up from close range, but he shot tamely at Sava.
King and Gaffney both had efforts just clear Sava’s crossbar shortly afterwards as the home side looked for more goals.
Monaghan were then reduced to nine men following the dismissal of goalscorer O’Brien with 13 minutes remaining.
Ludden was denied twice in a matter of minutes by Sava as he was well positioned to save. The Monaghan keeper came to his side’s rescue again with five minutes remaining as he once again denied Gaffney with his legs, while sub Don Tierney shot over at the other end following a lay-off from fellow sub Michael Isichei.
Mervue halted a three game run of defeats with this win as they finally registered their first league win since returning home to Fahy’s Field and, on this evidence, no team will relish visiting the eastside venue.
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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