Archive News
Savage New Year attack on 80 year old
Date Published: 07-Jan-2010
GARDAÍ in Galway have renewed their appeal for any information which might lead them to track the man they believe was responsible for a brutal attack on an eighty year old pensioner in her home during the early hours of New Year’s Day.
They had re-issued an appeal for public assistance as well as a description of a man they want to interview in relation to the sustained attack which has left the woman in a serious condition at Galway University Hospital.
Supt Tom Curley said that Gardaí were particularly anxious to talk to anyone who was out on New Year’s Eve and noticed anyone acting suspiciously between midnight and around 2am in the vicinity of Shantalla Road, Cooke’s Corner or Rahoon Road area.
The alleged attacker is described as approximately six feet in height, in his twenties, with dark hair – short at the sides, slightly curly on top – wearing dark trousers or jeans, a dark top and black leather shoes.
He is also described as having a ruddy complexion, but Gardaí accept that – on a bitterly cold night like New Year’s Eve – a man with red cheeks wouldn’t necessarily be that unusual.
Gardaí have set up a special Incident Room to deal with the case, which Inspector Curley admitted was a particularly savage attack – he said they were determined to make progress on this investigation as quickly as possible.
“We already issued an appeal for information but there has not been a huge response. We would be of the view that quite a number of people would have been walking about or going to parties at the time in question and perhaps they could think again if they saw anything at all that they might now consider suspicious,” said Supt Curley.
Gardaí on the case are also currently sifting through CCTV footage from a much larger area – stretching to Henry Street, Dominick Street, St Mary’s Road and Newcastle Road – to see if there are any clues to be gleaned from there.
Supt Curley said that officers had already taken possession of a substantial amount of CCTV footage, but again he appealed to home owners or businesses with CCTV footage, who have not been contacted by Gardaí, to offer it to the investigation.
“This poor woman suffered a horrific ordeal that lasted for up to 90 minutes and she is still in hospital recovering from her injuries.
“Perhaps at this stage, someone remembers a person in their company on New Year’s Eve who was acting suspiciously, someone who may have disappeared from the rest of the group for a period of time that co-incided with this woman’s ordeal, or someone who has been acting out of the norm since then,” he said.
All information will be treated in strictest confidence by the investigation team who can be contacted at the special Incident Room at (091) 576250.
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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