Archive News
March 15, 2012
Date Published: {J}
1912
Craughwell assault
On Sunday last, a serious assault, which, from what can be learned, endangers the life of a respectable farmer named Richard Morrisey, of Cahercrin, took place in Craughwell. It appears that after Mass, Mr. Morrisey was, with other parishioners, waiting outside the Church to attend a meeting of the Sacred Heart Sodality.
From a group opposite, a heavy stone was fired which hit Mr. Morrisey on the head, inflicting a serious wound. The police, who were absent on the occasion, later became apprised of the occurrence and the injured man was conveyed to the police barrack, but it was considered necessary to have the wound attended to by Dr. Quinlan.
Meaningless outrage
Another meaningless outrage, of a character which one would associate with lunatics deprived of all moral sense, has, we deeply regret to say, to be recorded.
On Sunday, about 9pm, when the night w
as dark and showery, a party of six young men were driving to Galway from a hurling march at Gort. When about 1 ½ miles outside Oranmore, they were fired on by persons in ambush, four gunshots, it is stated, coming from the side of the road. All the men except one, were more or less injured, two of them somewhat seriously.
The driver at once whipped up the horse, and Oranmore was reached at a furious gallop. Then the affair was reported to the police. A second car coming from the hurling match at a considerable distance behind the other, was unmolested, and its passengers saw no trace of the assailants.
1937
Peculiar custom
An old custom, believed to be in vogue in the district for generations – that is, taking away gates on November Night – led to the appearance of two young Kilconnell men before Mr. T.J. O’Sullivan, acting D.J., at Ballinasloe Court on Monday last. The defendants, Thomas Connor and John Connell, from Kilconnell district, were charged with maliciously damaging two gates, the property of Martin Lyons, in the same district.
Sergeant Vaughan, sergeant in charge, Kilconnell, said he understood that this custom was an old one in the district – taking away gates on November Night. The guard were put to considerable trouble making searches afterwards and it was to put to an end this practice in the district that the prosecution was brought.
The acting Justice said it was a very peculiar one. He had never heard of it before. IN giving the defendants the benefit of the Probation Act and ordering them to pay 8s. expenses incurred in the case, the acting Justice said he hoped that the prosecution would end this peculiar custom in the country.
Schoolboy dilemma
The expulsion of a bay from Mynish National School had a sequel in Carna District Court on Tuesday, before District Justice Sean MacGiollarnaith, when a man was summoned under the School Attendance Act.
Garda Kineally said that the case had been adjourned for three months from a previous court and defendant’s son, in respect of whom he was summoned, had not attended school in the meantime. The boy had been expelled from Mynish school on account of alleged misconduct.
Defendant said that he had tried to send the boy to Carna school, but the teacher there would not accept him without the manager’s permission. Witness had failed to obtain the required permission.
Replying to the Justice, Garda Kineally said that the Mynish teacher told witness that the boy was ill-mannered. The Justice adjourned the case for one month and instructed the complainant Garda to interview the manager in the meantime.
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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