Archive News
Rock and punk with a trad twist
Date Published: {J}
BY ANTOINETTE GIBLIN
As hundreds of students across the country struggle with the compulsory Irish language policy in schools, one group of Galway teenagers are doing their bit to ensure their native language stays very much alive by introducing their unique take of Gael-punk to the County.
Ronan Flaherty (16), Ciarán Conneely (17), Eoin Conneely (16) and Peadar Gill (16) have two things in common – their love of music and their passion for the Irish language.
“When I finished sixth class, I loved music and I wanted to keep it going. I have also always loved Irish so wanted to find a way to keep them both going,” says Ronan Flaherty from Knocknacarra.
After jointly entering a competition held by TG4 which required the boys to write and perform a song through Irish, the four Gaelgeoirí who hail from Inis Mór, Rosaveal and Knocknacarra decided to form an All-Irish group.
“First TG4 asked us to do a song. It was a competition and we entered it. We were only 13 at the time. It didn’t really go anywhere but because we had so much craic doing it, we decided to form our own band,” they explain.
At the young age of 13 having merged their love of music with their love of Irish, the rock band named The Temporary started out small by doing covers, later writing their own material in Irish.
“After our first song, we really got going,” the group recall.
Although all four of the Irish fanatics stress that there is nothing short-term about The Temporary, they did consider renaming themselves ‘as Gaeilge’ for a short period but quickly realised that doing so could alienate the growing number of fans and followers who had come to know the band by the name.
“I was trying to create a Bebo profile for the band. Myself and Peadar couldn’t agree on a name so he said ‘oh just put down a temporary one’. So I did just that and the name The Temporary has stuck with us since then,” says Ronan.
The pioneers of Gael-punk have already managed to attract a strong line of followers including the well known Irish rockers The Coronas who they performed with in a youth concert held in Carraroe last January.
“It was such a great opportunity for us. They are really good guys. They told us we had a really good career ahead of us after the gig and that has meant so much to our confidence as a band starting off,” Ronan says proudly.
“We still send some stuff off to them. They have a listen and let us know what they think.”
The Irish language, the band claim, is also being revived in many others ways by well known personalities such as Des Bishop and through the introduction of multilingual shows in popular youth stations such as iRadio.
“I think it is turning a corner. It’s cooler now. People like Des Bishop have done a lot for it. It’s progressing more than it was a few years ago anyway.
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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