Archive News
Rural life to be preserved in a’moment of time’ film
Date Published: {J}
OVER the Summer months, a new GAA pilot initiative has been running locally, aimed at raising the profile of Gaelic games – and participation levels – in Galway City.
As part of its National Strategic and Vision Plan, the GAA made an investment of €200,000 in its National Urban Programme in an effort to promote Gaelic games in 11 urban centres around the country, including Galway, Dublin, Sligo, Belfast, Derry and Cork.
Charged with spearheading the venture in Galway City has been Michael ‘Bosco’ Gallagher, who has been busy spreading the GAA gospel to those who, previously, may only have had a cursory interest in Gaelic games.
“Basically, we are covering three target areas, which would be the children aged eight to 12; the teenagers, 13 to 15; and the adults, through the recreational games, namely Camán Abú (hurling) and Peil Abú (football),” outlines the Ballinderreen native.
“The programme is aimed at children and adults, who might never have played the game before. So, I picked out areas like Renmore, which would be a stronghold for St. James’, Castlegar and Liam Mellows. Initially, the numbers, as regards children, were between 15 and 20 and a lot of these kids never had played the game before.”
Another area he has targeted is Doughiska. “The DRA (Doughiska Residents Association) held a camp and there were over 96 kids involved in it. A lot of the children were non nationals. It went on for a week and I had my football and hurling up there, alongside soccer and rugby. So, it was like an introduction for these children to the various sports.
“We also ran the Camán Abú and Peil Abú up there and we had people from the likes of Poland, who had never played the game, coming out. Although I had problems thinking of and pronouncing their names – I also don’t think they understood the non contact element of it, but that could have been down to my English – it was good fun.”
In many respects, the initiative is about making the GAA even more relevant and accessible in a modern, ever changing Ireland. It is no secret that, for some time, the GAA has been concerned with the fall-off in participation levels, due to other attractions and less active lifestyles, in the large urban areas.
Consequently, the aim of this initiative is two-fold. One, it is to provide games for those children who may have no ties with the local GAA club in their area, and, secondly, to entice more adults, particularly parents, in the broader community to take an interest in Gaelic games.
To achieve the latter, the GAA devised the two new recreational games, Camán Abú and Peil Abú, which they launched at GAA Congress earlier this year. Gallagher says the response to these games in the City has been very positive.
“We targeted two areas in the city,” he continues. “We introduced Peil Abú into the Doughiska area while Renmore hosted the Camán Abú. That has been going very well. In the adult recreational games, we had 35 to 40 people playing and many of them had never played before.
“In fact, a good few from the tag rugby joined us for the Peil Abú after those competitions finished . . . and they enjoyed it. The Camán Abú, though, was slow enough to take off, but the numbers are picking up now. We did it last night in the Prairie and we had 18 adults playing it.
“I think, though, these games can be big. Coming from a hurling background myself, the Peil Abú is great fun. I would never have played tag rugby either, but listening to the tag rugby people, they have been saying the Peil Abú is better because, once you get tagged, you hand over the ball straight away and the game continues on.
“So, it is more of a free-flowing game. They seem to enjoy it and, I mean, again, a lot of them would never have played Gaelic or, indeed, come from a Gaelic games background. So, it is good that way,” states the City Games Development Officer, who also notes these games could also be used to attract more volunteers into the clubs.
The highlight for many was playing in Croke Park on the day of the Kilkenny v Waterford All-Ireland senior hurling semi-final. “We had two Galway teams up that day,” says Gallagher. “Portumna were on one side of the field and we had a team up from Renmore, which would have been made up of people from Liam Mellows, Salthill and Knocknacarra. It was nine-a-side and they loved it.”
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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