Archive News
Just in case – all the party machines ready for election battle in 24 hours
Date Published: {J}
Noel Grealish dropped a bombshell letter on the desk of Government Chief Whip Pat Carey TD on Wednesday of last week. Now an Independent TD, Grealish, a former member of the Progressive Democrats, was telling Carey that the Government could no longer rely on his support in Dáil votes.
In fact, now that the PDs no longer exist, for weeks there has not been an official agreement in existence relating to either the support of Grealish, or Mary Harney. I heard Harney did her own bit of negotiating. But, for Grealish, a new urgency had been injected into the situation by the flooding situation and a linked problem of lack of funding for restoration of damaged roads in County Galway.
I understand that flooding and roads were among the key Grealish demands in that private letter to Carey, but the re-negotiation of the deal on the two PDs votes was inevitable. I understand that Grealish also believed that maybe his support was being taken as a little too much for granted.
The doubt about one additional vote would have been another headache for the Chief Whip, the man charged with ‘doing the sums’ on an ongoing basis for the Government in the Dáil. But, maybe as an additional indication of his intent, Grealish upped the pressure in the final few days of last week in the Dáil, by missing a few lesser divisions in the House. That’s a strong indicator for someone who has been a very regular voter in the Dáil.
Grealish arriving with his letter will have made it ‘that sort of week’ for a wobbly Government – talks about an unpaid 12 days from the public sector saving maybe €900 million next year; the trade unions going public on it much too soon; public opinion pouring scorn on the idea; trade union leaders squirming on radio to explain more of the package they were allegedly offering; and the Government appearing to ‘lose the bottle’ in the face of public reaction and a heading like ‘Cowen caves in to public sector unions’ in the Irish Independent.
Things were on a knife-edge, so it’s hardly surprising to know that, even before news of Grealish’s letter looking for a ‘new deal’ for his vote, all of the parties had everything in place for an election – they’re all ready to roll with an election in 24 hours. You won’t, of course, get confirmation of that from Fianna Fáil!
Take Fine Gael out in Galway East, for instance. I understand it has a venue picked for its candidate selection convention in the four-seater constituency and all that remains to do is send those texts and mobile calls to get the hundreds of delegates together and launch the campaign.
The list of potential candidates is Paul Connaughton TD, Ulick Burke TD, Councillor Tom McHugh, Dr John Barton (the four-member FG team from 2007 that took two Dáil seats), and Senator Ciaran Cannon, a former member of the Progressive Democrats who joined FG some time ago and is very much seeking a place on the ticket.
A key issue here will be the directive from FG headquarters as to how many candidates should be chosen on the night by delegates. In my opinion, if the directive is four then they will be Connaughton, Burke, McHugh and Barton.
But, could it be ‘pick three’ with one to be added by HQ? In that sort of situation would HQ be choosing between Barton and Cannon, with Barton pointing to his 4,900 first preferences last time out, and Cannon with his 3,300 in 2007 as a PD runner.
One thing is sure, Fine Gael will be going to maximise its vote in the battle – for there is a belief, that if the backside falls out of the Fianna Fáil vote, as some polls would indicate, then maybe even FF long-time incumbents like Noel Treacy and Micheál Kitt might not be safe.
Something to keep the potential runners in line, however, may be the fact that, with Fine Gael likely to head-up the next Government, Enda Kenny having all those Senate nominations as Taoiseach, and a record number of councillors to elect senators, Kenny will have real fire-power on his side.
Of course I know Kenny is proposing to abolish the Seanad, but that requires a referendum and could take quite some time . . . and, in the meantime, there will have to be a new Seanad after any election.
For more see page 12 of 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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