Archive News
Jumpers for goalposts Ð and jerseys for 18 stone giants
Date Published: {J}
I almost bought a tee-shirt with the old John Lennon line ‘Imagine there’s no hunger’ emblazoned in big bold letters on the front – and it was indeed an aspiration easily fulfilled at the point of purchase….the Hard Rock Cafe.
Even more appropriately these famine-busting garments came in a variety of sizes – right up to XXL, made of enough cotton to comfortably shield the average African family from the worst excesses of the midday sun.
And in fairness, anything initiative that tackles world hunger – no matter how unorthodox that effort might be – has to be better than doing nothing at all. But stuffing burger guzzlers into tee-shirts that accentuate the wish that the stick-thin Mr Lennon once dreamed shows a slight disjoint between aspiration and reality.
Then again, maybe the restaurant chain with the Hollywood backers saw no irony in fighting world hunger while simultaneously trumpeting their massive burgers with three different kinds of cheese.
And at the end of the day, that is scarcely more ironic than the sight of an 18 stone man in a football shirt – a much larger replica of the top worn by some slippery whippet on eighty grand a week.
You go to any Premiership ground and the odd ones out are the ones dressed in their own clothes; you have sweaty giants in jerseys stretched beyond the point of elasticity – sometimes worn outside two jumpers and a coats for added insulation – vicariously reliving their youth at a time when a warm coat would be more appropriate attire.
God be with the days when the height of public acknowledgement of your support for a team was wearing a crepe cap – with the maroon streaming down your face in the omnipresent rain – or a giant rosette proclaiming nothing more than the word ‘Galway’ surrounded by more of that maroon and white crepe paper.
You didn’t get fellas wandering around Shop Street back in the day in Galway jerseys thinking they were Liam Sammon or Bosco McDermott – so why would a fifty year old, eighteen stone man think he’s a double for Wayne Rooney?
Even twenty years ago, if you went to Dublin the night before an All-Ireland, the only way you’d know if there was a big crowd up from the competing teams was the accents – and even then you might just be encountering the clerical officers of the Department of Education on a night out in Sloopy’s or Club Nassau.
Now Dublin is a sea of black and amber or blue and gold, as the fans proudly proclaim their affinities with the help of a clever marketing man from O’Neills.
New-born babies are given replica kits – often in the Mammy’s county colours by the in-laws just to annoy the proud father – and from there on life takes on an annual pattern of new replica kit for Christmas.
Just as arborists calculate the age of a tree by counting the rings, so too parents can reflect on their children’s development by going through the wardrobe and counting the number of times that Liverpool or Manchester United came out with a new kit or a new sponsor emblazoned on the front.
In Liverpool’s case, you might smile at the memories of the Crown Paints, Candy or Hitachi era before Carlsberg and finally Standard Chartered – a company previously unheard of in these parts – became the slogan of choice for the discerning fan.
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
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