Archive News
Kenny is ÔhumbledÕ by Mayo Person of the Year honour
Date Published: {J}
As he enters into his second year in office Taoiseach Enda Kenny has bedded in well, and has lost no lustre despite the strain of the Government’s effort to keep the wolf from the Irish door, and the severity of the rescue programme imposed on the country.
Kenny’s cordiality in whatever country or community he is visiting stands out like a daffodil in spring and, like the flower, seems to have the effect of lifting the human spirit despite the hard times in which we live.
Regardless of his onerous schedule the Taoiseach still manages to fill invitations to all sorts of events in Mayo in gratitude for the magnificent mandate he received from the people of his native Mayo, who elected four Fine Gael candidates this time last year.
And last week Muintir Mhaigh Eo honoured him as Mayo Person of the Year at their annual function in Dublin which was attended by some 850 enthusiastic admirers. The Taoiseach was greeted with a standing ovation as he came forward to accept what he described was perhaps the second most important honour that could be bestowed on him.
The first award, he told the audience, was presented to him last February.
“It is difficult to surpass the trust placed in me by the people of the country by my election to the office of Taoiseach.
“But this award of the Mayo Person of the Year comes fr
om our own, ourselves, and I am deeply appreciative of that, and humbled.
“I shall carry it with pride around the world. I draw strength from it. I draw consolation from it,” he said. Nothing touches Enda more than to witness abroad the creative spirit of his own people.
In Washington last St Patrick’s Day he listened at the annual Friends of Ireland luncheon as the Speaker of the House of Representatives John Boehner quoted a verse from a poem extolling the beauty of Islandeady, the birthplace of Taoiseach.
The House Speaker was paying tribute to Enda Kenny on his election as Taoiseach.
He said many who came to America during the Famine period originated from the shores of the west coast of Ireland, near a small village in county Mayo called Islandeady.
He said he recently read a poem about Islandeady, written by Pauline Rice. It begins: From the lake in Islandeady, there’s a view of seven hills, Near the ancient Churchyard ruin wherein the Maker tills, Birds sing sweetly in the trees, waves wash on the shore, And lap about the anchored boats as fish leap by the score.
The Taoiseach spoke later of how proud he was to hear a poem from his own parish quoted in the White House.
And in Dublin last week he referred to the personal pride he felt in accepting the award on behalf of all present.
He quoted George Washington, the first President of the USA, who once said the most cherished virtue of all was the ‘character of an honest person.’
He intended, he said, to bring that to bear on his life and he concluded with a quote from The Boys From the County Mayo, often referred to as the Mayo anthem: “Don’t show the white feather wherever you go”.
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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