Archive News
Retirement signals new direction for Myles
Date Published: 29-Mar-2012
It would be almost unheard of now to enter a semi-state company without a third-level qualification and work your way up the ladder, but that’s what Myles McHugh did.
Born and bred in College Road, Myles followed in his father Tom’s footsteps by joining CIÉ, where he stayed until his early retirement at the age of 56 a few weeks ago.
In fact, Myles is doing things in reverse. He went ‘back to school’ during his time with the company and is now finishing an MBA (Masters in Business Administration) in NUIG.
By the time Myles retired from Irish Rail, his job enta
iled having responsibility for the whole country’s rail network. As Service Planning Manager since 2004, Myles oversaw the development of improved rail services. The introduction of new trains is the development that gives him most pride, though he admits that one drawback is the absence of double tracks in some places, which slows up the journey.
He acknowledges that Irish Rail has some way to go yet and agrees that the opening of the new motorway between Galway and Dublin has hit its business but believes that the company must now offer enhanced services on the route in order to attract business people.
“Think of the wasted hours spent in the car when you could be working on your laptop on the train – and we are introducing WiFi, which will make this option attractive. In the medium term, real changes have to be made to reduce journey times and I am confident this will happen.
And if that competition is restored, the trains will be very busy again,” he says as if he were still working for the company.
But it’s not surprising that Myles has the company’s best interest at heart, as he started working there when he was a boy, getting a summer job just before his Leaving Cert year in 1972.
Then he got a fulltime job there after finishing his Leaving in the Bish. His first role was working on the buses (this was when both buses and trains operated under the CIÉ umbrella).
“I started counting the cash and checking ticket machines on the buses. That was back in 1973 and I didn’t leave until last month when I took early retirement.
“I honestly didn’t think last Christmas I would be retired, but the opportunity was there and I decided it was time I tried putting some of my recent education to some use.”
It’s not that Myles will be idle! He is already involved in a number of community activities. He has helped the smooth amalgamation of Éire Óg with Fr Griffin GAA Club; he used to be chairman of the Lough Atalia Residents Association, when he lived there and he is current Chairman of the Board of Management of the Bish.
He says there is a huge challenge in the city for Gaelic football in getting young people to play and equally getting adults to participate in coaching and mentoring. He got involved in Fr Griffin’s when his own son was playing with them and has continued his voluntary involvement with them.
But he has to complete his exams for the MBA first before taking a hard-earned break and then possibly venturing into some project that he is already mulling about in his head.
It will involve some kind of consultancy work, possibly with new businesses.
Myles grasped the opportunity to leave Irish Rail because the travel involved had become gruelling. “When I took up the position I was expected to attend meetings in Dublin maybe once or twice a week but that was becoming almost a daily necessity.
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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