Archive News
St. ThomasÕ boss expects his team to learn from draw
Date Published: 14-Feb-2013
IT was a game to remember and, looking at it, you would ask what more could St. Thomas’ and Loughgiel Shamrocks give? Quite a lot, remarked the respective managers after this absorbing fixture, noting there was plenty to improve on.
That’s the measure of champions . . . be they the Galway winners or, in Loughgiel’s case, the reigning All-Ireland holders. No matter how good a performance an individual or team can deliver, it can always be better. There is always room for improvement. This was a recurring theme throughout the post match discussion.
“Today was a big learning curve for our lads,” said St. Thomas’ boss Burke. “We have a young outfit and we never had this experience before. Even to come up here – and there was such a crowd – I was afraid it might just affect them a little bit but it didn’t bother them really, which was great. So, I think they will learn big time from this and it will bring them on a tonne.
“If someone told us beforehand we would have a match next week again, we would have taken it with two hands. So, we are delighted. We are after playing the All-Ireland champions and you could see out there why they are All-Ireland champions.
“We looked to be out the gate – gone – and they came back and when they went ahead, we fought back. And when we went ahead again, they came back at us again! So, it was probably a great game for the neutral supporters, the people above watching it, but it was hectic stuff for anyone on the sideline or anyone involved in it. It was hectic stuff.”
Indeed, Burke was delighted his charges would be getting a second shot at it, although he was disappointed that they failed to hold onto their four-point lead heading into the dying moments of extra-time.
“We would be disappointed with that but I knew they were going to stay coming at us. That was the kind of game it was. It was tit-for-tat. Chances were going to come and when they came, Loughgiel took them.”
The last of those opportunities was a Loughgiel goal which came from a Liam Watson 20 metre free. Although the St. Thomas’ camp disputed the decision in the heat of the moment, Burke was more diplomatic in his reflection on the incident.
“They (officials) were closer to it than I was. Of course, I would be giving out about it but wouldn’t every manager? They called it and we were lucky that we were three points up. It would have been a killer if we were just two! It would have been a killer if we were two up and they got the goal. We have a shot at it another day and that’s what counts.”
Burke did not make an issue of the free count against his side either – which stood at 20-7 in Loughgiel’s favour – noting: “I will have to look at that. I would have to say, though, Loughgiel are a very disciplined team. Just look at the way they play. They don’t give away frees. You will earn your score. That is the way they play the game.”
In any event, Burke paid tribute to his players for their gritty displays, including Conor Cooney who shot 12 points on the day. “Conor was outstanding but he has been doing that day in, day out for us. He wins the dirty ball all the time. He is one of our top men but I have to commend every one of them. They fought to the end and it was hard going out there.
“The 33, 34, 35 or 36 players who went out there, they gave everything they had and nobody left anything on the field. I mean, you have to say, it was a hard, physical game but, you know, they just got on with it. That is the way hurling should be played.”
For more, read this week’ 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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