Archive News
The highlight of the year was the Ôbotty washÕ excursion
Date Published: {J}
I was on a bus recently in the city and sitting in front of me were two kids of no more than 10 years of age. What struck me was the amount of what I would call ‘hardware’ they were carrying . . . and the probable cost of it.
One had an iPhone which had applications which I could not even begin to comprehend, and the other had a hand-held computer game that surely cost a few more hundred.
The last time I saw such an iPhone it was in the hands of a man who had just received a present of the darn thing and was trying to explain its applications to me . . . or maybe it would be more accurate to say that he was trying to figure out precisely how it worked and thought he might as well do some experimental demonstrations on me!
Those kids on the bus brought me back to the days when life was simpler . . . and expectations were a hell of a lot less on the part of youngsters. Our highlights of the year were what was termed ‘the botty wash excursion’ and the Mass servers’ outing to Knock. The expectations were no more but we enjoyed ourselves hugely, even if we did get into the odd scrape.
Because we lived 20 miles from the sea, in an era when cars were very scarce indeed, there was almost no chance we would get to the seaside. Except, that in our case there was a generous neighbour who had a lorry and once a year he used it to bring more than a dozen of us to Silver Strand in what was a most extraordinary excursion.
The Commer lorry would be decked out with the ‘cribs’ usually used for transporting loads of turf. They meant that there was little chance of any of us falling out . . . so we loaded up into the back of the lorry, a few adults got into the cab of the vehicle, and we headed off the 20-plus miles to Silver Strand.
What a day out it proved to be for landlubbers. Sometimes, you had to wait your turn for the togs – no there wasn’t a pair for everyone in the audience and what use would we have had for togs most of the time. There could also be some slight embarrassment when the togs were a little on the small side but, after all, this was ‘the botty wash’.
On a day such as this, the highpoints included my father, who had come along as one of the minders, lashing out his last 10 shillings on ice cream for the multitude of kids, but my favourite moment was when they broke out the sandwiches and the ravenous mob tucked in with a gusto that was frightening.
Don’t ask me how they made enough of those delicious bread-butter-and-banana sandwiches to go around, and how they brought so many of those giant flasks of tea . . . but, by the time we had finished, we were full to the ears, ready for some more tricking about in the sand, and then the journey home.
The only part of the return trip I remember is the twisty ‘country road’ leading from Silver Strand to Galway . . . for I slept so soundly lying on the steel floor of the lorry that we were home in Tuam before I knew it.
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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