Archive News
The engineers at Fukushima may be dying for us as well
Date Published: {J}
The news agenda rumbled onwards so noticeably at the weekend – the 24-hour news channels which had been putting out round-the-clock coverage of the awful tragedy of Japan, changed their focus to the war action in Libya.
Suddenly, we were getting those stock images once more of apparently surgical strikes by cruise missiles, the ‘Star Wars’ style images of the world’s most sophisticated aircraft roaring away from the decks of carriers. Why, they even broke out the stock footage of submarines launching those extraordinary missiles which seem to wobble around in the water briefly before coming flaming out of the waves.
On Sunday afternoon as Sky News went into ‘war mode’ I thought it can’t be long before we begin to see reporters ‘embedded’ with the UK forces, except that this time, it is unlikely we will see what they call ‘boots on the ground’. Those terms which reporters seem to love like ‘fire and forget missiles’ came into use all over the place.
However, the lessons of Afghanistan may have been learned. In other words, it’s grand to play ‘Star Wars’ on warships hundreds of miles away from the target, or in planes that fire their missiles from another country, but don’t get dragged into a ground war with the likes of Ghadaffi, or indeed The Taliban.
The remarkable change in the news agenda in a matter of hours was a disturbing reminder that the world does tend to move on from even the most dreadful events. Japan and its tragedy became item number two. I thought, how many now remember the shock and awe of watching the scenes from Haiti in the wake of its enormous earthquake?
In the case of Haiti, the sheer grinding poverty of the country meant that the wreckage we were seeing drifting by in extraordinary rivers was largely composed of tin roofs and rubbish from shanty towns . . . in Japan, it’s been made up of waves of cars, lorries, vans, fridges, houses, apartment blocks.
But, for this writer, the images from Japan that will survive in the mind’s eye when many others will have faded, will be those from the past week of the snow-covered wreckage of one of the most sophisticated and wealthiest countries in the world as it struggled to cope with a huge natural disaster in which it appears impossible to even count its dead.
The other thing from which it is hard to escape is the fact that the engineers are probably enduring fatal doses of radiation for us in that power station as well . . . for, even as they take on those massive doses of radiation in attempting to save the reactors from exploding and meltdown, they are saving the rest of the world as well.
When it comes to nuclear accidents in Japan, it isn’t just those living within a few hundred kilometres who are in danger. Many will remember that when Chernobyl happened all those years ago, there were distinctive traces of its nuclear signature picked up as far away from the epicentre of crisis as here in the west of Ireland. Yes, the mountains of Connemara also registered the distinctive signature of Chernobyl.
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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