Archive News
Joyce hoping Galway attack can swing the verdict against Sligo in minor clash
Date Published: {J}
Dara Bradley
THE Galway minor football squad will look to put a disappointing league campaign behind them when they face Sligo in the quarter-final of the Connacht Championship at Markievicz Park this Saturday evening (6pm).
Galway, beaten All-Ireland semi-finalists in 2010, lost to Mayo, Roscommon and Sligo in the league earlier this year and beat just Longford and Leitrim during the spring campaign, although manager Tommie Joyce (Killererin) and his selectors John Concannon (Milltown), Terry O’Regan (St. James’) and Michael Culhane (Clarinbridge) will have their charges primed for this make-or-break clash, their target all year.
Galway have won the previous three championship meetings between the counties at this level – by 0-3 to 0-9 last year, 1-5 to 0-7 in 2009 and 0-11 to 0-9 in 2008 – but the Yeats County got the upper hand over the Tribesmen by the narrowest of margins in this year’s league.
Galway supporters shouldn’t read too much into that defeat, however – at least six of the squad who have been selected for Saturday’s knock-out tie, were absent against Sligo as they were in action for their college, St. Jarlath’s.
No less than six of the starting XV, announced after training on Tuesday, were part of the St. Jarlath’s set up that fell just short of St. Colman’s of Newry in a thrilling Hogan Cup final at Croke Park in April, including Liam Silke, Conor Cunningham, Cathal Mulryan, Patrick Glynn, Shane Walsh and Ian Burke.
The management has also selected three of the survivors of last year’s campaign which ended in a 5-8 to 3-15 defeat to Cork at GAA HQ, including captain and full-back James Shaughnessy (Ballinasloe); and sharpshooters Conor Rabbitte (Kilkerrin/Clonberne) and Shane Maughan (St. Michael’s).
Nearly 20 from the squad have been sitting Leaving Certificate examinations for the past couple of weeks, which hasn’t helped preparations but Joyce is reasonably happy Galway will be ready for battle.
“The exams aren’t over until Thursday and the match is on Saturday but we’ve a lot of training done in the past few months,” he said. “We started trials in January and we gave everybody five or six trials. We kept everybody on board for a long time and had a squad of about 40 up until a few weeks ago. I’d say we should be okay but it’s the first game, it’s knockout, and so you don’t know how it will go, so you’d be nervous enough.
“If we were playing the game at home you’d obviously be more confident but we’d be happy enough with how we’ve prepared. Our forwards are sharp and if they all click on the day they should be hard to keep down. Having said that we’d have a nice balance all over the field. A lot of the Jarlath’s lads and guys from last year would be experienced enough, which should stand to them,” added Joyce.
The winners of this clash face an away match with Leitrim in the semi-final the following weekend and the winners of that take on the victors of Mayo v Roscommon, who square up in Castlebar this Sunday.
Galway: C. Gleeson; L. Silke, James Shaughnessy, C. Cunningham; E. Walsh, G. Canavan, C. Mulryan; S. Geoghegan, S. Moran; P. Glynn, S. Walsh, G. Kelly; C. Rabbitte, I. Burke, S. Maughan. Subs: D. McDonnell, C. Timmon, J. Killeen, C. Bohan, E. Walsh, M. Ó Bearra, A. Nolan, C. Seoige, S. Silke, J. Killeavy, G. Armstrong, S. Hughes, J. Kelleher, C. Lee, C. Flaherty.
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
