Archive News
Indie group Reader’s Wives for free show in the R—is’n Dubh
Date Published: {J}
The Dublin based indie rock outfit Reader’s Wives play a free show in Róisín Dubh on Saturday, September 3. The group, who are called after a British soft porn magazine, released their second album, Rachel’s Apartment during the summer and are riding high after a festival season that saw them play Oxegen.
Although Reader’s Wives are currently independent they are open to offers, and as part of this, lead singer and guitarist Niall James Holohan has just been at a meeting before doing this interview.
“I’ve had my business head on the last couple of days,” he says. “There’s loads going on – it can’t be a bad thing.”
Wasted Youth is the second single to be taken from Rachel’s Apartment and Niall explains why it’s the band’s latest calling card.
“We chose that one because we played a few festivals and that’s the one that’s gone down the best.”
Niall is joined in the band by Elton Mulally (bass/vocals), Paul Shanahan (drums/vocals) and Ali (lead guitar). Each member chips into the song writing process, so the band has a few different ways of coming up with ideas.
“There’s four of us, so all the songs are different,” says Niall. “Sometimes I’ll show up with stuff, sometimes the drummer does.
“You keep plugging away until you’re eyes light up and it’s ‘we’re on to something here’. It’s hard enough to come across, but that’s what musicians live for.”
Rachel’s Apartment was recorded between Dublin and London, but it wasn’t just the mixing of the album that took the band to the UK.
“We were touring then, as well,” says Niall. “I say touring – we grab weekends away. Actual old-school style touring with the bus – that’s where we want to get. In Ireland it’s tough – you can’t really play often enough to go off on one.”
Although they are still in the middle of plugging their second release, Reader’s Wives have already started working on the follow up.
“We pride ourselves on being prolific,” says Niall. “So we’ve already started little bits and bobs for the third album. Even though we’re in the middle of promoting the second one. You’ve to wear a lot of different hats!
“I’m a bit of a manic musician – I love it all!” he continues. “Every part of it, which I think you have to. Especially at festivals – you meet some surly bands. And what are they doing it for? They could be zookeepers if it’s going to keep them happy.”
Speaking of festivals, how did their slot at Oxegen go for them?
“It was brilliant,” says Reader’s Wives’ frontman. “This year, because it was a week after our album came out it just felt like the timing was right. Thanks to the guy that does PR for us we got a load of radio stuff backstage, right after the gig. So it was that kind of hectic day that musicians live for.
“We went down on a bus with a big bunch of our friends as well, which made it such a party. Like the [Beatles’] Magical Mystery Tour – especially when every Guard around the area didn’t know what entrance we were going in.
“And also it rained. We got lucky! It rained just before we went on, we were in the Hotpress Academy Stage. It was the best gig we’ve had. We played well, the audience was really up for it.”
Rachel’s Apartment is a rocking album, but halfway through the listener is caught off-guard by a slower number called Isadora Duncan. How did Niall come to hear about Duncan, a pivotal figure in modern dance who died in a freak car accident in France in 1927.
“I can’t remember how I even discovered her,” he says. “I think it might’ve been that movie Serpico, with Al Pacino. He makes a sort of off-hand reference to Isadora Duncan. I’m a bit weird that way, if I hear these things I kind of want to know.”
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
images/files/images/x3_Courthouse.jpg
Families queue up for school’s offer of free house
West has lower cancer survival rates than rest
Galway minors continue to lay waste to all opponents
Gardaí and IFA issue a joint appeal on summer road safety
Marathon Man plans to call a halt – but not before he hits 160 races
