Archive News
Relieved Killererin men get out of jail in forcing a replay
Date Published: 22-Aug-2012
Killererin 0-12
Micheál Breathnach 1-9
Noel Carney at Pearse Stadium
THIS was very much the one that got away as far as Micheál Breathnach are concerned as they let Killererin off the hook by missing three great chances of kicking a winning point in the final minutes of this hard fought senior football championship quarter-final at Pearse Stadium last Sunday.
History would suggest that teams like Killererin with their vast experience and ability to edge tight games will not let it slip when the teams meet again, but the Indreabháin lads will have something to say about that. They will be kicking themselves for not taking their opportunity in this game and will be heartbroken if they fail to clinch victory next time.
Certainly this game could have gone either way for most of the hour but the North Galway men can count themselves lucky to be still in the competition despite their amazing ability to pull games out of the fire when all seems lost.
Their supporters must have been worried when their team trailed 1-9 to 0-10 with five minutes remaining but, true to form, Nicky Joyce drove over a free to halve the deficit and Micheál Boyle levelled it under intense pressure from a 45m free that in normal circumstances would have been taken by goalkeeper Alan Keane, who had to miss this match due to suspension.
Killererin might have been then expected to power on to another of their famous last gasp victories, but instead it was a fired-up young Breathnachs outfit that threatened to take the spoils. Three times they broke through the former champions’ defence but, on each occasion, the chance was lost through over-anxiety and lack of composure.
Although trailing by a point at the break, 0-6 to 0-5, the Gaeltacht lads took the game by the scruff of the neck in the third quarter and established a 1-9 to 0-9 lead with 15 minutes remaining. They failed to score again, however, and even though they only conceded three points during that period it was enough to prevent them from advancing to the semi-finals.
Breathnachs were first to feature on the scoreboard when Peadar Ó Cionnaith, who had earlier seen his free come back off a post, had better luck with one from play only seconds after Killererin’s young goalkeeper Alan Fahy had denied him with an excellent save. They could have been further ahead, but missed a number of chances by being over-ambitious with their passing, often driving ball in to players who were being marked, sometimes on the double.
Killererin had their opportunities too of course and should also have done better. Even Padraig Joyce, looking strangely subdued, dropped two shots into goalkeeper Eoin Ó Coisdealbha’s hands early on and later did it a third time before the break. His cousin Nicky got them off the mark from a free after he was fouled on a solo run, but Breathnachs then got on top.
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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