Archive News
New venture has Galway buzzing with possibilities
Date Published: {J}
Beekeepers in Galway are buzzing about an exciting venture, which will see community groups throughout the county set up hives in their own areas, as part of a scheme called Educate to Pollinate.
Under the project, which started last Monday night, 20 people from 10 groups are being trained in all aspects of keeping honeybees and will be helped to set up hives locally.
Already groups in from places such as Kinvara, Gurteen, Abbey Duniry, Glenamaddy, Furbo, Inverin, Headford and Carroawbrone on the outskirts of Galway City, are involved in the course, which is being offered at a miniscule cost.
The aim is simple, says the Secretary of the Galway Beekeepers Association Michael Hughes. It’s all about educating people and increasing the number of hives in Galway.
That’s important because of the huge role honeybees play in pollinating flowers and plants while they are on the quest for food. That pollination helps ensure a supply of fruit and vegetables for us humans. Not to mention the honey they produce, which is valuable both from a taste and a medicinal point of view. Then there is beeswax, which is used to make a range of goods from candles to cosmetics.
A recent study from the Department of the Environment shows that bees are worth €85 million to the Irish economy. And that’s all very fine, but more people are needed to keep hives, says Michael.
A former rower and a board member of Irish rowing, who works with Valeo Vision Systems in Tuam, Michael only began keeping bees last Spring, when he got three hives. He has embraced his new hobby with enthusiasm and when the association was looking for a secretary, he was happy to oblige.
The Galway Beekeepers Association consisted of over 40 members last year, he says, but that has already increased thanks to the organisation’s work. He’d like to see a continuing “infusion of new blood”, which is where the Educate to Pollinate programme comes in.
Michael might be a relative novice at beekeeping, but he describes himself as a creative thinker, who wants to broaden the appeal of this ancient pastime.
“Ninety per cent of our mission is education and getting people active. To protect this species of Irish bee, we need to get people involved and good husbandry.”
Funding for the Educate to Pollinate project is being provided under the Local Agenda 21 programme. This scheme, which arose from a United Nations initiative, promotes sustainable development and biodiversity, and is run by local authorities.
Michael first heard of Agenda 21 last summer and realised it could help the Galway Beekeepers.
“If this is about biodiversity, the bee is the very future of biodiversity, in terms of helping the landscape to flourish. So we ticked all the boxes [for funding]!”
The tutor for the Educate to Pollinate course, Breandáin Ó Cochláin, is “one of the most eminent beekeepers on these islands”, says Michael.
A retired professor of Physical Chemistry at NUIG, he has served as education officer of the Irish Beekeepers Association and prepared exams for the Irish organisation that were also taken up by beekeeping groups in the UK.
The full cost of the training has been provided by Agenda 21 and the Galway Biodiversity Action Plan funding. Participants must pay €40 to cover a member’s subscription to the Galway Beekeepers Association (for insurance).
The training, which consists of two hours over six evenings, will also involve a visit to an apiary. When it’s completed, the communities involved will be assisted in setting up a local hive with expert advice and some basic equipment if that’s required.
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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