Archive News
Irish hero of Mexico’s fight for freedom
Date Published: {J}
Irish man John Riley – believed to have been from Clifden – who led the San Patricio Battalion in Mexico in the 1840s war against the US, will be the subject of a documentary on TG4 this Sunday night.
Saol John Riley, directed by Galway man Kieran Concannon, follows Kerry singer songwriter Charlie O’Brien as he revisits the sites associated with Riley and tries to discover more about the revolutionary hero’s fate.
Charlie is one of several songwriters, both here and in America, who have been inspired by the deeds of John Riley.
The song Pa Los De San Patricios commemorate
s the brigade, and was included on Charlie’s first CD, Songs from an Outpost in 2007. He had read about the story in a book called The Irish Soldiers of Mexico by American historian, Mexican resident and authority on the San Patricios, Michael Hogan.
Other singers who documented events in Riley’s life include Nashville bluegrass star, Tim O’Brien who co-wrote the song John Riley with the legendary Guy Clark. New York Irish rockers, Black 47 penned a song called San Patricio as did folk singer Thom Moore, while Ron Kavana wrote The Men That God Made Mad about Riley and his men. That was recorded by Niamh Parsons and others. In addition, the Chieftains and Ry Cooder did a whole album last year around the San Patricios.
Plays have also been written about the story and Tom Berenger played Riley in a Hollywood movie based on their story, called One Man’s Hero.
Film maker Kieran Concannon was aware of the story for years and curious about the sculpture called The Rifle at Clifden town centre, commemorating John Riley.
“Charlie was interested in knowing more about Riley and what became of him and so I followed him to Mexico to look at how he is remembered there. We attended last September’s commemoration ceremony at San Angel, where a plaque in their honour was erected in 1959 and where they are remembered annually each September.”
This year, a new monument was unveiled by the Irish ambassador – a bust of Riley. No pictures of Riley exist, but this was a sculptor’s impression of him, explains Kieran.
“What was clear was the respect and gratitude that still exists in Mexico towards those men. They are national heroes. Apart from the plaque and bust of Riley at San Angel, there are several other monuments throughout the city and country, while streets are named in their honour: Irlanda, Martireses Irlande, Heroes del 47. The old Convent of Churubusco on the outskirts of Mexico City, where they fought their last battle and were captured, in 1848, is now a museum dedicated to the war, and the plaza beside it is called Plaza Batallon San Patricio.”
While making the documentary, Kieran and Charlie spoke with Mexican historians; with Larry Kirwan, the singer with Black 47; with Irish historian and writer, Ian Kenneally; with Breandan Ó Scanaill of the Clifden and Connemara Heritage Society and with an American photographer/artist resident in Mexico, Oweena Fogarty, who is creating a project on the same theme. They also filmed in Clifden for the annual John Riley commemoration in that town.
Riley’s eventual fate after the war, when the Americans released him, has long been a mystery and that is something that Kieran and Charlie O’Brien explore in Saol John Riley.
The half-hour documentary touches lightly on a very complex historical subject, and through Charlie O’Brien’s eyes, viewers will see how John Riley and his deeds still enthral today’s songwriters and artists.
Saol John Riley goes out on TG4 as part of the new Cogar series on Sunday at 9.30, and is repeated next Wednesday, Sept 27, at 11.30pm.
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
