Archive News
Long road ahead as GalwayÕs limitations exposed
Date Published: 13-Jun-2012
IN the context of Galway’s football troubles over the past five or six years, what happened in Pearse Stadium on Saturday evening comes as no great surprise, but judged against the squad’s encouraging conclusion to the recent National League campaign and their trimming of Roscommon in the opening round of the Connacht championship, the loss to Sligo is particularly deflating.
Most of us were starting to believe that new manager Alan Mulholland had already kick-started a renaissance, but reality bit in front of Galway’s own supporters as their limitations were exposed by a Sligo team which ended up having five points to spare having been the same margin down after 30 minutes. There were no hard luck stories and the Galway camp now has much soul searching to do ahead of the qualifiers.
The 2-14 to 0-15 outcome represents a major setback for the Tribesmen who had momentum going into the fixture, but never really fired despite establishing an early advantage. They managed only six points from play and lost the second-half by 2-9 to 0-6 which brooks no argument. Galway were clearly flattered by the Roscommon result as the opposition were probably even more wretched than we presumed at the time, while the shoulder injury to team captain Finian Hanley only compounds the gloom.
Mind you, Hanley was not having a good evening on Man of the Match Adrian Marren prior to his retirement in the final quarter. The outstanding Sligo full forward finished the match with 2-6 to his credit and tormented a sluggish Galway defence with his accuracy and smart use of possession. Beside him, David Kelly returned after a long injury lay-off and he too caused no end of problems. With Alan Costello and Shane McManus also to the fore, together with full back Johnny Martyn leading a hard-working rearguard, Sligo were simply the better and more cohesive team.
In contrast, Galway were flat on the evening with few players surviving the wreckage. The back-line was too easily unhinged and outsmarted, with too many players too eager to join the attack at the expense of their basic defensive duties. Joe Begin did make a few thundering catches around midfield but, by the end of the game, Sligo had taken control of the sector, while the attack was far too heavily reliant on frees for scores.
Paul Conroy, the hero of the Roscommon win, earned three of those frees and also picked off three points from play which, in the circumstances, was a fair evening’s work, even if he was rarely as prominent as in Hyde Park. Mark Hehir was accurate from the placed ball, but like the remainder of the attack struggled to make real headway in open play. Sean Armstrong typically looked dangerous but promised more than he achieved.
Galway’s half forward unit didn’t deliver a score from play as the tactic of playing two natural half-backs – Gary Sice and Damien Burke – and a recognised midfielder, Thomas Flynn, in that sector left them seriously devoid of natural attackers. Michael Meehan and Padraic Joyce were called into action but, by that stage, Sligo’s tails were up and the Yeats County were heading for third championship win over Galway in their last five meetings.
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
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
