Archive News
Night of nostalgia back in the world of the little people
Date Published: 07-May-2013
WE had some small visitors to the house recently – children, not mice – and, in an effort to calm the atmosphere so that some sleep might descend on them the right side of midnight, we tuned into those channels that are usually off-limits.
Well, not those channels – but the children’s ones. It’s been almost a decade since our world was last ruled by them . . . and boy how things have changed.
RTÉ recognised this too by repackaging its own entertainment for younger viewers into RTE Jr, although this might have more to do with being able to sell advertising on RTÉ2 again, having been forced to leave kids’ TV ad-free up to now.
Back in the good old days, there was an hour of children’s television if you were lucky, with perhaps the Brady Bunch to enjoy. And that was cutting edge because a generation earlier had to make do with Daithi Locha and Drawing with Blaithín.
We had Sesame Street of course, where the moral message mixed with the fun – a formula taken to a higher and infinitely more annoying level with Barney and his perfect ethnic mix of little friends.
But now – to misquote Bruce Springsteen – there are 57 children’s channels and, while they frequently have nothing on, there is a more subtle educational side to all this; it’s not the mindless noise you might think at first glance.
Take Dora the Explorer – and there are many who wish you would – who is bilingual and gives you a blast of Spanish to go with your traditional English.
One might argue that the Teletubbies were dreamt up under the influence of drugs, but they also induce a trance-like state in the under-twos – which sort of justified the abuse of illegal substances, if that’s how this all came to fruition.
But there is an educational dimension here too, and the greatest compliment you can pay to children’s television is that it stimulates and entertains all at the same time. Which is certainly the case with a programme called Little Einsteins on Disney Junior, and – as the title might suggest – this brings subliminal education to a higher level.
Because this isn’t just a cartoon; it was also designed to teach the kids a little bit of culture, hence the backdrop of famous art work with classical music, with a composer of the day.
The show is also designed to encourage viewer interaction – they pat their knees to make the Little Einsteins’ submarine go faster or they have to gesture or sing along to help the characters succeed on their quest.
Despite the usage of Einstein’s name, there is no discussion of anything physics-related in the series – although one could argue that good kids’ TV actually is rocket science.
They say it’s harder to write a successful children’s book than one aimed at adults because children won’t persevere just because they feel they have to – and the same holds true for television.
If it doesn’t hold their attention, they’ve switched the channels, because while the only alternative for those of us from the ’70s was to watch what was on or turn it off, Sky has enough kids’ TV to see you through to parenthood.
And while those channels are as under-used in our house now as a calculator was at the Department of Finance, it was with a touch of nostalgia and a desire for peace that we surfed down an old familiar road once again.
We enjoyed catching up with the Rugrats after a gap of a decade, and SpongeBob SquarePants proved for the zillionth time that he’s actually aimed at an older audience while masquerading as a children’s programme.
Which sort of brings us to where we normally find ourselves when there aren’t three and four year olds visiting – series that might look like cartoons at first glance and then reveal adult themes that would give your granny a heart attack.
Okay, so everyone knows what The Simpsons are all about and that’s one show that can be enjoyed by children of all ages – even the grown-up ones – but do not mistake Family Guy or American Dad or The Cleveland Show for mere animated dramas. Because that would be your first mistake.
To these guys, a minute without sexual references is a minute wasted, so the only way to stop your teenagers from watching it is to sit down beside them and try to watch it with them.
So it was nice to look at animated television of the more innocent kind once again – if only for one evening. Although it does make you wonder why you’re paying for television channels you watch one night a year.
Still, there wasn’t much on the regular channels and even if there was you wouldn’t have been able to hear them through the din.
In any event, normal service will be resumed next week.
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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