Archive News
Mind over matter is John’s key to success
Date Published: {J}
The mind is such a powerful tool that if we could only learn how to train it and harness our fears, we would be better off says one man, whose whole life now is devoted to helping others.
John Connolly not only believes in the power of mind over matter but also makes a living from it through hypnotherapy.
John is a native of Castlegar though not from the other Connolly family who live nearby and are famous for their hurling skills.
He himself played with the juvenile hurling team in Castlegar and even managed them for a few years until this year.
He used to be a truck driver but had to give up that career when he lost the sight in his left eye due to a blockage that built up behind the eye socket. Unfortunately, surgery didn’t save the sight and in 2005 he realised that he had to find another way to make a living.
As it happens he saw an advert for a course in hypnosis and decided to go for it.
He had a few sessions in the late 1980s in London to help him quit smoking, which he did so he knew it had worked for him.
For the best part of a year, he attended training modules which were run by the Irish Hypnotherapy Association.
He knew almost straight away that this was for him and he was told that he had a great way with people. That was a skill he learned as a child helping out in his parents’ shop in Castlegar.
“The hypnotherapy I do is clinical, not for entertainment. The mind controls everything we do. There’s a thought process even to get up and walk. Everything we ever do starts in our imagination.
“What happens in your subconscious mind becomes very open in hypnosis, and the subconscious is where all the emotions and memories are stored; what you have learned and accumulated by way of knowledge in this life,” says John.
John speaks very quietly, very gently and even in conversation, he has a way of drawing you in and earning your confidence. And though he says anyone can train to be a hypnotherapist, there is no doubt that his own winning personality helps him gain a client’s confidence.
This time of year, Lent, after the New Year and good intentions, is one of his busiest times.
“People start off the New Year or even Lent giving up cigarettes on their own, or trying to lose weight but then their resolve weakens and they turn to me.
“Since I started, most of my clients have wanted to quit smoking or lose weight but I have also helped people get over tragedies or trauma.”
John himself is not immune to tragedy and sadness in his personal life.
He was left widowed with a teenage son a number of years ago, when his estranged wife died.
They had lived apart for a while and though their relationship wasn’t good, he had always worked on being the best father he could to Dean, who is now 16.
Dean plays hurling with Castlegar, which was partly the reason John got involved with them again and the sport is a strong bond between father and son. He is proud that the team got to a county final despite the fact that they got beaten in a replay!
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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