Archive News
ÒPlaying senior hurling now, ladsÓ Ð a tough test for GalwayÕs new TDs
Date Published: {J}
Just a few months into the term of office of the new Fine Gael-Labour government and it has been a particularly torrid start for Galway West’s new TDs – Brian Walsh and Sean Kyne (FG) and Derek Nolan (Lab).
The national opinion polls may say the government is more popular, but the spotlight has fallen on them because at issue is the future of Galway Airport, which seems doomed if the government does not come up with funding for ongoing running costs.
Transport Minister Leo Varadkar, who might be kindly described as ‘the most directly spoken’ among the Cabinet, has said that there is not funding to support the airport. The airport authorities said initially they needed €1.7million this year.
Suddenly, the three new TDs hardly had their bums on those seats in Leinster House – one of them a gain from Fianna Fail as they knocked out FF’s Frank Fahey – and they were being asked difficult questions back home in the constituency over a key piece of infrastructure that many see as crucial to city’s future.
The situation in which they find themselves brings me back once more to the famous remark of Seamus Brennan in the Dail to TDs who found themselves in government – ”ye’re playing senior hurling now, lads.”
Galway Airport first had said that it needed a €1.7million subvention for this year, but, following a lot of work both by the airport and TDs, and a huge re-working of the airport figures and projections, this was reduced to €1.2million. I understand that a large part of the re-working was on the basis of a major increase in traffic.
However, this €1,2million was still twice the total national funding which Varadkar had for potentially three airports – Galway, Sligo and Waterford.
The word in government circles is that this is just one of many cuts in spending which will have to be carried through and they are not going to re-visit cuts decided on by the previous government.
But there is no point now in the present government pointing to a previous administration as regards cuts, especially as Eamon Ó Cuív TD (FF) pointed out in the past week that the Transport Department with its budget of well over €600million this year, must surely be able to find a million in its spending.
All this has upped the squeeze on the three TDs – Walsh, Kyne and Nolan – for whom the airport is at the heart of their vote area. The pressure mounting on them is coming from business and community.
Business leaders say the airport will close if funding is not forthcoming and it is crucial for the future of Galway, especially in the area of attracting new industry. Key industries are reputed to have said that the airport is crucial – but the Varadkar line up to now appears to be that he doesn’t have the money, Galway-Dublin is now well less than two hours by motorway, and that the airport is not being used anyway.
Of course, it was also a week in which we had the first major Fine Gael-Labour ‘spat’ of the present administration – with East Galway Labour TD Colm Keaveney hitting the national headlines when he said a very loud ‘no’ in the Dail to and intervention by Enterprise Minister Richard Bruton TD on the setting of wages in sectors such as hotels and catering.
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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