Archive News
Moycullen ride their luck in a dour low scoring local derby
Date Published: {J}
Moycullen 0-9
Barna 0-8
STEPHEN GLENNON
AT PEARSE STADIUM
FOUR unanswered points in the final 10 minutes – which included the winner from a Phillip Lydon free two minutes into injury time – secured a depleted Moycullen a precious first round derby victory over an extremely wasteful Barna in this uninspiring senior championship tie at Pearse Stadium on Sunday.
While Moycullen may have garnered the win, the finger pointing in the post match analysis was all in the Barna direction. For the majority of this fixture, they had dominated proceedings, but 13 wides throughout was to cost them dearly.
Indeed, in the second period alone, Barna tallied no less than nine of those wides while Moycullen custodian James Keane took down a plethora of other efforts from underneath his crossbar. Quite simply, it was atrocious marksmanship from a Barna perspective and if the 2010 county semi-finalists are to go on a similar run as last year, then they better start fine tuning the radar.
As for Moycullen, you would have to admire their indomitable spirit. Shorn of the services of so many key players – Paul and Gearóid Clancy, Kieran O’Connor, Donal Byrne, David Wynne, Sean and Gareth Bradshaw and Diarmuid Lee – a lesser team would have been content to be in touch at the end, but not Moycullen. Somehow, they managed to conjure up a result out of nothing.
And it was out of nothing. Although playing with a strong wind, Moycullen trailed their neighbours by five points to four at the change of ends and for the opening 20 minutes of the second period, Padraic Oates’ men were played off the park. In fact, their only attack in this time was a 45th minute point from Martin Maloney, following good work from centre forward Tomas Higgins.
In contrast, Barna were creating chance upon chance and in the first five minutes of the second half they kicked as many wides. True, the misty, windy conditions were at times unforgiving, while the football, for the most part, was like one big bar of soap. But it was the same for both sides.
In any event, from approximately 15 scoring opportunities in the second half – and that is a conservative estimate – Barna kicked just three points, namely two frees from the lively DD Flaherty on 37 and 46 minutes and a superb score from Ray Conneely on 49 minutes.
That proved to be Barna’s last score while Moycullen, sensing there was something to be taken from the game, sprung to life in the closing stages. Lydon hammered over a free on 51 minutes, before he cleverly punched over another point – following hard graft from Pat Lydon and Fergus Kerrigan in the build up – four minutes later.
When Pat Lydon got on the end of a move involving Brian Faherty and Phillip Lydon just moments after to tie up the match, the stitching in Barna’s patchy performance began to unravel uncontrollably. Indeed, from being in a position where they had bossed the contest for long periods, they were now fighting to cling on to a result.
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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