Archive News
Red-letter night for Connacht rugby to live long in memory
Date Published: {J}
Michael Glynn
IT’S been some journey for Connacht. Ninety eight games in the shadowlands of European rugby before finally emerging into the spotlight and the glamour of a David v Goliath confrontation that, if not quite enrapturing the nation, certainly attracted more spectators to a newly-resplendent Sportsground for one sitting than had passed through its turnstiles in many a full season.
One doesn’t need to be hoary and grey to remember the proverbial two men and a dog constituting the crowd at Connacht matches and, even until quite recently, an attendance that reached four figures was worthy of special note. If Connacht embraced professionalism and European rugby with enthusiasm from the outset in 1996, albeit in the secondary tier, the same could not be said of the potential fan base which remained largely indifferent to their impressive success ratio and occasional giant-killing feats, most memorably the home and away wins over a star-studded Northampton in 1997.
That’s what made Saturday night such a remarkable occasion; a venue that has traditionally had less life that the adjoining New Cemetery was transformed into a throbbing cacophony of noise, of chanting and song, of good humour and fun, all combining to generate an atmosphere the likes of which has never previously been remotely associated with the College Road venue, notwithstanding visits by the All-Blacks, the Australians and South Africa over the years.
Warren Gatland, the coach who led Connacht on those first tentative steps into the great unknown at the start of the professional era, would not have recognised his old stomping ground.
Bleak and deserted for the majority of his time here, despite leading Connacht to a Challenge Cup Quarter Final in 1997 and the first competitive victory on French soil by an Irish province, the contrast could not have been greater on Saturday as the ground became a heaving sea of green in the presence of both the President and An Taoiseach.
Players of the highest calibre are week-in, week-out visitors to the Sportsground but never on this scale as the aristocrats of Toulouse came to town for Connacht’s home Heineken Cup debut replete with nineteen internationals of various hues and a handful who had graced the World Cup final only a matter of weeks ago. And among them was the IRB World Player of the Year, the majestic Thierry Dusautoir. In a era of celebrity, this was a dream fixture.
A dream fixture with the potential of becoming a nightmare, however, if Connacht wilted in the white heat of the moment and in the face of such rugby regality. Mercifully, that was not to be the case, for although always outclassed and doing themselves little justice in the opening stages, they were never pounded into submission and enjoyed some passages of defiant attacking themselves in a rewarding middle twenty minutes of the second half.
True, they were frequently left gasping for oxygen as Toulouse entered different stratospheres, but at the end of the day it was not an inconsiderable achievement to deny the four-time European champions a bonus point for a fourth try.
For more, read this week’s Galway CityTribune.
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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