Archive News
Sportsground to be heaving for historic night
Date Published: {J}
IT’S going to be the biggest single sporting event in Galway this year as Heineken Cup rugby finally comes to the city. The Sportsground will be heaving with excitement and anticipation on Saturday night when Connacht get to play their first home match in Europe’s elite club competition.
Even the greyhounds which have been such an integral part of the sporting history of the Sportsground will hardly mind staying in their kennels this weekend as Sky Sports, a sell-out crowd of near 9,000, and the aristocrats of French rugby descend on Galway for what is a landmark occasion for sport in the West.
And the appetite for the fixture has been whetted by Connacht’s heroically defiant debut effort in the competition when they pushed Harlequins all the way at The Stoop last Saturday, only to suffer the abject disappointment of not even collecting a bonus point for repeatedly laying their bodies on the line against the English Premiership leaders.
There had been widespread fears that Eric Elwood’s squad would be out of their depth in the Heineken Cup, but their performance against Harlequins suggests that Connacht have the capacity to be competitive in all their group fixtures. As last Saturday’s match entered the home straight, there was only two points between the teams and the hosts were enduring the fright of their lives.
Unfortunately, two late penalties from the near-flawless Nick Evans, who landed seven of his eight kicking attempts, put paid to Connacht’s sterling resistance, but Gavin Duffy and his team-mates have earned a new respect for the extraordinary commitment and quality of their display. If anything, Connacht were nearly too wired up – conceding 11 penalties to five – but how can you fault a group of men who literally drove themselves to the point of exhaustion?
Lessons, however, must be learned, and quickly, especially around the breakdown if Connacht are to avoid the needless concession of penalties. Discipline is what it’s all about, but admittedly that may be easier said than done against Toulouse on Saturday night when the team will be urged on by a capacity and passionate crowd. Controlled aggression simply must be the home side’s mantra.
In the wake of their close shave against Connacht last weekend, Harlequins coach Conor O’Shea conceded that they hadn’t played well but, to be honest, they weren’t allowed to. Leading by 19-10 at half-time, they probably thought the hard work was done, but with Mike McCarthy and John Muldoon towering figures in the opposition pack, Harlequins were unable to put the match to bed. In fact, when only two ahead, they were in danger of losing it.
Connacht, who outscored their hosts by two tries to one, were undoubtedly inspired by the historic nature of the occasion. In the 14th minute, they got the first of those and what a cracker it was too.
Muldoon was heavily involved before young Eoin Griffin made the incision for left wing Tiernan O’Halloran to finish off in style. When Miah Nikora added the extras, the rank outsiders had surged into a 10-6 lead. Harlequins were clearly rattled, but they regained the initiative thanks to a try in the corner from scrum-half Karl Dixon with Evans also tacking on his fourth penalty before the break.
It would have been understandable if Connacht were a little deflated during half-time. They hardly deserved to be adrift nine points adrift, but they were to perform with even more ferocity on the resumption. In the 57th minute, they broke through for the team’s second try with Brian Tuohy doing the spadework for Duffy to beat the Harlequins cover. With replacement out-half Niall O’Connor converting, suddenly there was only two points between the teams.
The Connacht players continued to empty the locker, typified by the manner in which McCarthy somehow denied winger Sam Smith from getting the first touch as the ball bobbled over the try line in the final quarter, and they were on the brink of a huge upset only for Harlequins to lift the siege with those late Evans penalties. The big question now is can Connacht keep this level of intensity up?
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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