Archive News
Seasoned Loughrea and Gort teams still standing
Date Published: 31-Oct-2012
IT was a day for the old dogs for the long road at Kenny Park last Sunday. On a miserable afternoon, the senior hurlers of Loughrea and county champions Gort underlined the value of experience in a semi-final double bill where grit and resilience were essential ingredients for survival in hostile conditions.
In qualifying for a sixth county final in ten years with surprising comfort, Loughrea underlined once again their remarkable consistency.
Having been defeated in four of those deciders, Gavin Keary and company have also displayed an admirable ability to bounce back from big disappointments and the club now stand only 60 minutes away from capturing only their third ever Galway title.
Getting to finals has not been a problem for this generation of Loughrea players over the past decade, but winning them has. That is not a concern for the time being even if the manner in which they brushed a disappointing Turloughmore challenge aside last Sunday suggests that the Eamon Kelly managed outfit are now the team to beat.
The big contrast between the sides was Loughrea’s superior knowhow, craft and inherent toughness. They have been here before and know what semi-final occasions are all about. They are not fazed by big crowds and big matches. Turloughmore, however, were appearing at the penultimate stage of the championship for the first time in eight years – and it showed.
The men in black and white needed a good start and to settle early, but neither happened despite playing with the elements. And, frankly, the writing was on the wall for them when they trailed by 1-6 to 0-4 at the interval. They were edgy and fell significantly below the high tempo and quality of their display in beating title favourites Portumna in the quarter-final.
Of course, there was a lot of hype about them after that result, but they didn’t cope particularly well with the increased level of expectations and their camp will be dejected at not putting their best forward last Sunday. Still, Turlough have made significant progress this year and assuming the commitment of the players is maintained in 2013, they are potentially the emerging force on the local scene.
Some of the Loughrea players have been around a long time – the likes of Vinny Maher, Nigel Murray and Keary lined out in a county semi-final as far back as 1998 – but their resolve remains as strong as ever. They can be vulnerable as was the case the first day against Mullagh, but they have been on an upward curve since as evidenced by this emphatic victory over Turloughmore. They are rarely spectacular, but generally get the job done.
One of their lesser known performers, midfielder Emmet Mahony, has really stepped up to the plate in recent weeks and it was his surging run which paved the way for Kenneth Colleran’s decisive opening-half goal. With young players Sean Sweeney and Paul Huban doing well in the back line, Johnny Maher landing the frees, Johnny O’Loughlin zipping around the field as usual and Pa Huban pickling off a couple of points from play, Loughrea ultimately made short of Turloughmore.
The opening semi-final hardly lived up to expectations, but the heavy rain which fell throughout virtually the entire match was a big contributory factor to the mediocre fare on offer. St. Thomas’s led for virtually the entire 60 minutes with county player Conor Cooney to the fore, but never really threatened to pull away from the county champions, for whom Keith Killilea and Greg Lally stood out, with Gerry Quinn landing some critical frees.
St. Thomas’ may have made short work of Castlegar in the quarter-final, but facing their neighbours and a team they have a poor record against, was always going to ask much harder questions of John Burke’s charges. Conditions would hardly have suited their style of hurling, but they still led by 0-6 to 0-3 at the break and were in pole position to carry the day.
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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