Archive News
Matt makes the art of fine dining look easy
Date Published: 31-May-2012
In a climate where businesses of all sizes are struggling to stay open and where many of them have been forced to close, it’s heartening to see one that is not only thriving but showing all signs of going from strength to strength.
Time and again, successful businesspeople cite the importance of attitude and job satisfaction as being a huge factor in that success.
One such man in Galway is Matt Skeffington, who owns Artisan Restaurant in Quay Street, which won an award for ‘Best Restaurant in Connacht’ at the recent Irish Restaurant Awards at a glittering ceremony in Dublin’s Burlington Hotel. That event , which celebrates top eateries and local food heroes, is regarded as the country’s biggest foodie events.
Artisan is now considered as one of the top four restaurants in the country which is not to be sniffed at but it is obvious that Matt and his staff aren’t going to rest on their laurels.
On Tuesday, Matt and his staff sat down to a very animated meeting – a regular occurrence though oddly not one you would associate with a restaurant.
Afterwards, they took part in a training session – in this case a wine tasting from supplier, James Miley.
Matt believes in hearing feedback and likes to encourage the staff – 14 of them – to listen to customers and notice likes, dislikes and any other observations.
He also appreciates good wine and likes to keep on top of wine drinking trends as well as the food trends.
“I like to eat in good restaurants in Dublin, London or Paris and take home new ideas. I would consider our menu to be made up of good French classics with an Irish contemporary twist. . . but more importantly, our food is mostly sourced locally.
“We only use sustainable fish through Gannet and we get a lot of our fresh produce from Green Earth Organics in Corrundulla, though sadly there’s only so much that we can source locally.
“There’s also a huge emphasis on seasonal food. For instance this summer our menu is lighter. The newly appointed chef, Mark Campbell, isn’t using any dairy at the moment which means the sauces are lighter.”
That means that the monkfish is served with a red pepper and balsamic reduction and the cod is served with wilted greens and smoked bacon broth. They are only two mouth-watering examples! Obviously in the Winter, the dishes are heartier to reflect the colder weather.
Matt was delighted to have been nominated for the Irish Restaurant Awards, which attracted no less than 6,000 nominations, and he is absolutely thrilled with Artisan’s win.
“The award came almost four years to the day of our opening here and that’s how long it takes a restaurant to get established so it was a timely win.”
Matt came to Galway 12 years ago. He didn’t arrive because of a job or a desire to live in a colourful, cultural city but because of a girl he met while working in Germany.
“It was she who had the job in Galway. I just tagged along. But then I got a job down this side of town and her job was off Eyre Square so we never saw each other and the relationship faded,” he says as if the two ends of the city were on opposite sides of the world.
But funnily, there is a bit of a divide between the two areas, like a ‘them and us’ though it is more competitive than antagonistic. The Latin Quarter has certainly made its mark and the oldest part of the city is quite distinctive because of its narrow streets and proximity to the Claddagh.
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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