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Indie-rocking Raglans take road to Monroe’s
Groove Tube with Jimi McDonnell – tribunegroove@live.ie
Dublin based indie rock quartet the Raglans come to Monroe’s Live on Thursday next, December 17. The band –named after Patrick Kavanagh’s poem, Raglan Road – are Stephen Kelly on lead vocals and guitar, lead guitarist Sean O’Brien, Rhos Horan on bass and drummer Conn Ó Ruanaidh. When Rhos takes the call, he’s packing for their European tour, which takes in Belgium, Germany and Holland.
“I think we’re sailing at 8.20 in the morning; up early!” he says. “We’re getting the Eurotunnel, then driving from France to Amsterdam. A long day!”
Looking back over 2015, what has been Rhos’s highlight as a Raglan?
“There have been loads of highlights. It was pretty nuts for us. We got to go to Australia and play a festival called Soundwaves with loads of bands we grew up listening to. It’s kind of a metal festival, massive, with lots of big bands. There was Soundgarden, Incubus, Slipknot.”
The Raglans’ sound isn’t as a hard-rocking as these bands, but they still won some fans at Soundwaves.
“We were the first band opening up on the stage every day,” Rhos says. “We were expecting not many people to be there, but there was a good crowd. Half of them knew who we were. We were the softest band there, if you know what I mean – we’re not big metal heads. We didn’t really know how we’d go down, but there was a great reaction.”
The Raglans released their debut self-titled album in 2014 and have been touring doggedly since. Recently, they took the somewhat unusual step of releasing three new songs as YouTube videos. Why did they choose that route?
“We just wanted to do something different,” Rhos says. “We all thought videos and live tracks would go better than just throwing out an EP. It just sticks in people’s brains. We hadn’t released any new music in a while and we wanted to do something special. It seemed more interesting.”
The songs for YouTube were shot by Finn Keenan, who has worked with The Raglans on all their videos to date.
“We found a big abandoned warehouse in Howth,” Rhos says. “We snuck in and shot it all in one day. It was a lot of fun. We got up at 8, went and found the place, threw in all our gear and then set up. We had to do that for each song, lug all the gear around the warehouse. But it was fine.”
The Raglans’ toe-tapping tunes are driven by bass and drums supplied by Rhos and Conn. Rhos enjoys the partnership between the duo.
“Me and Con have been playing together since we were 13,” he says. “We got our instruments at the same time. For Christmas, I think. I got a bass, he got drums. Anytime we play together we know telepathically what each other is thinking. It’s great, it’s super easy to play with him.”
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Significant state investment is required to address ‘shocking’ inequalities that leave cancer patients in the West at greater risk of succumbing to the disease.
A meeting of Regional Health Forum West heard that survival rates for breast, lung and colorectal cancers than the national average, and with the most deprived quintile of the population, the West’s residents faced poorer outcomes from a cancer diagnosis.
For breast cancer patients, the five-year survival rate was 80% in the West versus 85% nationally; for lung cancer patients it was 16.7% in the west against a 19.5% national survival rate; and in the West’s colorectal cancer patients, there was a 62.6% survival rate where the national average was 63.1%.
These startling statistics were provided in answer to a question from Ballinasloe-based Cllr Evelyn Parsons (Ind) who said it was yet another reminder that cancer treatment infrastructure in the West was in dire need of improvement.
“The situation is pretty stark. In the Western Regional Health Forum area, we have the highest incidence of deprivation and the highest health inequalities because of that – we have the highest incidences of cancer nationally because of that,” said Cllr Parsons, who is also a general practitioner.
In details provided by CEO of Saolta Health Care Group, which operates Galway’s hospitals, it was stated that a number of factors were impacting on patient outcomes.
Get the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.
On the eve of completing his 150th marathon, an odyssey that has taken him across 53 countries, Loughrea’s Marathon Man has announced that he is planning to hang up his running shoes.
But not before Jarlath Fitzgerald completes another ten races, making it 160 marathons on the occasion of his 60th birthday.
“I want to draw the line in 2026. I turn 57 in October and when I reach 60 it’s the finishing line. The longer races are taking it out of me. I did 20 miles there two weeks ago and didn’t feel good. It’s getting harder,” he reveals.
“I’ve arthritis in both hips and there’s wear and tear in the knees.”
We speak as he is about to head out for a run before his shift in Supervalu Loughrea. Despite his physical complaints, he still clocks up 30 miles every second week and generally runs four days a week.
Jarlath receives injections to his left hip to keep the pain at bay while running on the road.
To give his joints a break, during the winter he runs cross country and often does a five-mile trek around Kylebrack Wood.
He is planning on running his 150th marathon in Cork on June 4, where a group of 20 made up of work colleagues, friends and running mates from Loughrea Athletics Club will join him.
Some are doing the 10k, others are doing the half marathon, but all will be there on the finishing line to cheer him on in the phenomenal achievement.
Get the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.
From the Galway City Tribune – An impassioned plea for a ‘masterplan’ that would guide Galway City into the future has been made in the Dáil. Galway West TD Catherine Connolly stated this week that there needed to be an all-inclusive approach with “vision and leadership” in order to build a sustainable city.
Deputy Connolly spoke at length at the crisis surrounding traffic and housing in Galway city and said that not all of the blame could be laid at the door of the local authority.
She said that her preference would be the provision of light rail as the main form of public transport, but that this would have to be driven by the government.
“I sat on the local council for 17 years and despaired at all of the solutions going down one road, metaphorically and literally. In 2005 we put Park & Ride into the development plan, but that has not been rolled out. A 2016 transport strategy was outdated at the time and still has not been updated.
“Due to the housing crisis in the city, a task force was set up in 2019. Not a single report or analysis has been published on the cause of the crisis,” added Deputy Connolly.
She then referred to a report from the Land Development Agency (LDA) that identified lands suitable for the provision of housing. But she said that two-thirds of these had significant problems and a large portion was in Merlin Park University Hospital which, she said, would never have housing built on it.
In response, Minister Simon Harris spoke of the continuing job investment in the city and also in higher education, which is his portfolio.
But turning his attention to traffic congestion, he accepted that there were “real issues” when it came to transport, mobility and accessibility around Galway.
“We share the view that we need a Park & Ride facility and I understand there are also Bus Connects plans.
“I also suggest that the City Council reflect on her comments. I am proud to be in a Government that is providing unparalleled levels of investment to local authorities and unparalleled opportunities for local authorities to draw down,” he said.
Then Minister Harris referred to the controversial Galway City Outer Ring Road which he said was “struck down by An Bord Pleanála”, despite a lot of energy having been put into that project.
However, Deputy Connolly picked up on this and pointed out that An Bord Pleanála did not say ‘No’ to the ring road.
“The High Court said ‘No’ to the ring road because An Bord Pleanála acknowledged it failed utterly to consider climate change and our climate change obligations.
“That tells us something about An Bord Pleanála and the management that submitted such a plan.”
In the end, Minister Harris agreed that there needed to be a masterplan for Galway City.
“I suggest it is for the local authority to come up with a vision and then work with the Government to try to fund and implement that.”
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
