Archive News
London based club is a home away from home
Date Published: {J}
IN the greater scheme of things, Tara Camogie Club in London may not register on many sporting enthusiasts radar, but for a number of Galway people, in particular, it has become a home away from home. A place to keep in touch with their roots. A place to retain, and nurture, that innate sense of ‘Irishness’.
Sheila Fernades (nee Dolly) is one such person. A native of Castlegar, Fernades is the daughter of former Abbeyknockmoy and Galway hurler, the late Ted Dolly, an uncompromising, teak-tough defender who won a Munster intermediate hurling medal with the Tribesmen in 1962.
Amazingly, growing up, Fernades’ interest in the camán was not as strong as it is today, but, then again, what do they say about absence making the heart grow fonder? “I left Galway at the end of ’86, but I didn’t play camogie or anything like that until I joined Tara in ’96,” she explains. “I didn’t know camogie was even played over here until that time.
“I had dabbled rather than played at home,” she laughs. “I suppose, I would have played up until U-14, and that was only because my dad was involved. I also have a brother who played, while my older sister also played a bit as well.
“It is great though for getting out of the house in the evening and my whole social life now revolves around camogie. I am married with kids, but it’s nice to get out and get a bit of fresh air and exercise. Also, all my friends now are involved in camogie. However, I just don’t think that enough people know that camogie is played in London.”
Consequently, Tara Camogie, which won the three-in-a-row of county senior championships earlier this year, their ninth in all, is engaging in a drive to promote their club both in London and back here in Ireland, in an effort to make the game more accessible to those Irish women who have to leave home to work in London.
“I often wonder what’s wrong; why don’t we get more girls playing with us?” ponders the Castlegar native. “There are loads of lads hurling over here and I always think there has also to be girls who travel over here in much the same numbers.
“You see new faces appearing every year with the lads, but with the women, you will always recognise the same girls on the other team. So, we need new faces. I don’t necessarily think that the girls aren’t here either – that they have all gone home or gone to Australia or whatever.”
In any event, Fernades, who is one of a number of Galway people involved in the club, believes Tara Camogie is more than just a club. “I should have retired years ago and if I was back home, there is no way I would be out playing camogie at my age,” says the mother of two.
“But it is great fun over here and nobody cares how good or bad you are. It’s just fun to go training. And with junior and senior teams, there is a slot for everybody. It’s great auld craic.”
However, if you think Fernades and company don’t take their camogie serious, then think again. This year, they completed the three-in-a-row of county senior championship titles, following an emphatic 1-13 to 0-3 victory in the decider over rivals Croydon in late July. She says the win rubberstamped their position as the top camogie club in London.
“There are four senior and seven junior teams in London. In senior, you have Croydon, Fr. Murphy’s and Brother Pearses and we have beaten each of those clubs in the final over the last three years, which is unusual. You usually have two teams who are strong at a particular time, with one of those dominating for a time and then another takes over.
“When I started back in ’96 – after I attended Tara’s 10th anniversary party – they had won loads of championships and they were very strong at the time. I remember winning an intermediate title in ’98, but then everyone went home [to Ireland] after that and others got married and it was just left to a few of us to keep it going.
For more, read this week’s Galway City 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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