Archive News
Sociability is key to Darragh’s success
Date Published: 18-Apr-2013
Darragh Guinnane is a born salesman although had he followed in his parents’ footsteps he might have been in the hospitality business – but he’s not ruling that out if he ever gets tired of the insurance business.
He loves his job as an insurance broker and right now he is on a high having been elected as this year’s President of the Insurance Institute of Galway.
At 31 years, he is probably the youngest president they have ever had and by accounts he is a welcome choice because of his ‘can do’ attitude.
Within minutes of being in his company, it is also obvious that his warm personality and thirst for life draws people to him. If he has many of the traits of a salesman, he is also a born leader.
The eldest of three children born to Gerry and Martina, who used to run The Round Table restaurant in High Street in the 1980s, he is no stranger to business and remembers working there when he was still a schoolboy.
The restaurant attracted city centre workers who wanted a solid, home-cooked meal. In fact it was like a club as most of the customers got to know each other through the very hospitable Gerry and Martina and it was certainly a home away from home for workers.
It was also probably where Darragh first learned his own people skills as he can practically talk to just about anybody about anything.
“I do. I love people. One of the things I like best about this job is being on the road, meeting people, visiting clients. Some days I would have tea, scones and sandwiches in a few houses, one after the other.
Sure it would be rude to refuse,” says Darragh who admits he loves his food, quickly adding that he could do with getting fitter!
When he was still a teenager he helped run a family pub in Crusheen in County Clare for three summers in a row.
He tried college, studying Arts in NUIG, but dropped out after a year as it didn’t really float his boat. He preferred playing golf. He was a member of Athenry Golf Club for 17 years and did toy with the idea of going professional. While in college he organised a golf team which won the national inter-colleges title.
And like most of his peers, he thought about emigrating but he knew it would break his parents’ hearts, especially his mother’s so he got a job with Hibernian Insurance in Knocknacarra where he worked for three years in the claims department of Aviva.
A family friend who also worked in insurance told him he was wasted in claims and advised him to get into the brokerage side.
“Well, I did and I have never looked back. I love it here. I started first with Galway Hooper Dolan Insurance in 2004. I remember my first sale was to a publican in High Street and I was thrilled. I know a lot of businesses in the town from the time my parents ran their business there,” says Darragh and mischievously agrees that he does indeed have ‘the gift of the gab’.
Darragh now works as a commercial insurance broker with O’Leary Insurance based in Liosban. He joined that group five years ago and in December was made a director, one of four general directors in the company, led by Michael Tarpey, whom he describes as a mentor and whose experience in the field he respects.
“He has a great feel for the business because he has such experience. I have certainly learnt a lot from him and I do pride myself now on the fact that I seldom lose a client unless they go out of business. Once they are with us, they tend to stay with us because we believe in good service, a personal one.
“The business has certainly become very competitive, especially here in Galway and younger people coming into the business are finding it harder to get into it, as they have to sit exams and get accreditation. This is extremely onerous but it has to be done to regulate the business and ensure it is run professionally.”
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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