Archive News
Rugby in vogue as Connacht and Ireland deliver
Date Published: {J}
RUGBY in Ireland, together with the interest in the sport, has probably never been stronger. With the international team staying on course for the knock out stages of the World Cup in New Zealand and the Irish provinces having dominated the Heineken Cup and what used to be known as the Magners League in recent seasons, the game has certainly never experienced a higher profile.
Ireland winning only the country’s second ever Grand Slam two years ago may have been overdue and was only backing up the achievements of Leinster and Munster, especially in the Heineken Cup, but it still represented a huge breakthrough and rugby has undoubtedly now become the fashionable sport for youngsters to take up in most parts of the island.
Connacht, for instance, has really bitten the rugby bug. Qualifying for the Heineken Cup this season gave the local game a massive lift and it is to the province’s credit, both on and off the field, that there is a steely determination for this achievement to be built upon and that it doesn’t become only a benefit in the short term.
The Sportsground has already undergone a significant revamp which not alone has increased the venue’s capacity, but also the comfort of Connacht’s growing band of supporters as evidenced by the massive jump in season sales, while on the field, the notable weekend Grand Slam triumph of the province’s U-20s shows that there is a talented supply line being developed out west as well.
Of course, another timely lift was Connacht’s admirable comeback from a ten point interval deficit against the Dragons at the Sportsground last Friday night. Having been somewhat unlucky to fall to Edinburgh the previous weekend, there was pressure on Eric Elwood’s squad to quickly get back into the winning groove, especially as most of their Rabo Direct Pro 12 opponents are currently short their international personnel due to the World Cup.
Well, it didn’t look good for a subdued Connacht at the interval as a Nathan Williams try helped the Welsh visitors into a 13-3 half-time advantage. 15 minutes into the second-half, they still had made no inroads into the Dragons lead, but with Elwood making vital replacements, not least the introduction of Matthew Jarvis at out-half, there was at least a renewed sense of urgency about the team’s efforts.
It was fitting that two local young players were at the heart of Connacht’s opening try, Tiernan O’Halloran doing the spadework for Eoin Griffin to cross over in the 56th minute. From there to the finish, the men in green were on the front foot and after excellent toil by John Muldoon, team captain Gavin Duffy finished off in style. With Jarvis converting both tries, Connacht edged in front and were unlucky not to stretch that advantage in the closing minutes.
Though expected to beat the Dragons, whose away form is extremely poor, the fact that Connacht did it the hard way gives the result greater pertinence. With three victories and a losing bonus point to their credit from the team’s opening four matches in the Rabo Direct Pro 12, rugby’s Western outpost is flying high in the league table. Fait play to all concerned, especially after losing a quartet of key players at the end of last year’s campaign.
At international level, last season may not have been a great one for Ireland after their tremendous exploits in the one before that and when Declan Kidney’s charges lost all four of their pre World Cup warm up matches against Scotland, England and twice to the French, it was hard to avoid the conclusion that Brian O’Driscoll and some of his team-mates were in decline. Several of the squad were already in their thirties and it appeared that their bodies were starting to show some wear and tear.
Ireland’s unimpressive World Cup debut against Eddie O’Sullivan’s US Eagles hardly lifted the sense of gloom, and they were generally rated 12 point outsiders for their subsequent collision with Australia. That match, however, saw the Irish produce one of the country’s greatest ever performances in comprehensively beating their frustrated opponents by 15-6, the margin could have been more as Conor Murray had a late try disallowed and Tommy Bowe’s lung bursting run was only halted near the line.
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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