Archive News
The tough Galway hurler who stood up to Christy Ring
Date Published: 24-Jan-2013
FORMER Galway hurler Ned Quinn may be due to celebrate his 90th birthday in May, but his humour and mind is as sharp as ever. Yes, the good days bleed into the bad – and vice versa – but the essence of the Ardrahan man burns brighter than ever.
In the foyer of Kilcolgan Nursing Home, Ned, accompanied by his daughter Irene, sits patiently waiting. He says he is only 5ft10” but he has the aura of man of far greater stature. He later explains that he did a bit of boxing in his youth and, looking at him, it does answer a few questions.
On this day, Ned’s health is betwixt and between but, even so, his humour is truly captivating and, before the interview concludes, he chuckles: “What kind of a cash prize did they give you to talk to me? Ah, I am only joking.”
The answer furnished was quite simple, if not a little on the manipulative side. “They told me you would tell me the truth about Christy Ring?” Ned relaxes with a wry smile.
Do you remember it Ned? “I think I do.”
Where you involved? “Maybe a little.” He pauses. “We won’t go back on it.”
Folklore has it that, after Galway’s defeat to Cork in the 1953 All-Ireland final, there was a couple of dust-ups between the respective players back at the Gresham Hotel. The first happened in the aftermath of the game that evening before Ring was left on the seat of his pants in another ‘frank’ exchange the following morning. That was the point Ned was understood to have entered the ‘debate’.
In many respects, it all stemmed from Galway’s disappointment and frustration. Earlier in the day, they were defeated 3-3 to 0-8 by the Leesiders and it still irks the former half-back that they put more scores on the board but lost the game.
“We had no luck on the day,” says the 89-year-old, who alludes to a high profile incident in which Galway defender and captain Mickey Burke was taken out of the game . . . allegedly, by Ring. “He (Ring) got away with murder on the field,” says Ned. “I mean, sure he could knock down anyone he wanted and get away with it.”
Ned believes that, because Ring was such a legend, he was given more leeway by referees and officials. “He was a crowd favourite . . . even with the great Tipp team that time, he could do what he liked with them. And he did do what he liked with them. He would give you a sup of the hurl any way he could – just as he was passing you out. Ah, he could handle himself.”
You get a sense that Ned has come to appreciate that and when it later comes to citing his greatest hurlers of all time, Ring tops the list. No wonder then the Galway game-plan going into that All-Ireland in ’53 was to keep the ball away from him but that was easier said than done.
At any rate, Ned says Galway’s luck was just not in that afternoon. “Every team needs a bit of luck on the day. The first goal was a kind of mystery goal. It went out beside his (goalkeeper Sean Duggan’s) ear and straight into the goal. Then the other two should have been cleared in time.
“I was playing in the half-back line when Burke was knocked down. Ring laid him out. Burke had to go off, he was badly hurt. Teeth or stitches. I was sent out on Ring then and I wasn’t going to stand for the same treatment, no, no. I was ready for him. Of course, we had a few words.”
Ned, who was on the Galway minor squad of 1941 but did not make his senior debut for Galway against Laois until 1949, played against Cork just once after that and he says it was “a cynical game”. He notes, though, that the 1953 final was certainly a missed opportunity to take the Liam McCarthy Cup back West.
That said, the father-of-two – Ena is his other daughter – did enjoy his days in the maroon and white, just as he did in the colours of his native Ardrahan, with whom he appeared in three county finals, winning just the one against favourites Loughrea in 1949.
That 1-9 to 2-2 county final win, played in front of a record hurling final crowd, was Ardrahan’s first senior championship victory in over 40 years and it was built on a rock-solid defence, marshalled by centre-half back Ned. Other prominent figures were Miko McInerney, Colm Corless, Paddy Hoarty, Simon Moylan, Bill Joe Coen, Sean Bermingham and Lowry Murray.
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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