Archive News
Twitchers’ delight after rare bird hits Inishbofin
Date Published: 21-Oct-2009
Hundreds of bird lovers flocked to Inishbofin Island last week after the first ever sighting in Ireland of a cedar waxwing. The bird, which is native to North America was spotted on the island on Wednesday last by Northern Irish birdwatchers Anthony McGeehan and Craig Nash.
“It’s a fairly distinct species which is found primarily in Canada but shifts to the US in the autumn migration,” explains Mr McGeehan.
The cedar waxwing migrate along the east coast of North America. However, a fast moving weather system which occurred in that area early last week blew this bird off course, he says.
“Birds have to go with the winds when that happens. Two or three unusual species were found from Iceland to the Azores at the same time, so the cedar waxwing could have been part of that,” says Mr McGeehan, adding that Inishbofin offers rich pickings for birdwatchers.
“I’ve been coming here for three years now and have always been lucky,” says the birdwatcher who first struck gold on Inishbofin two years ago when he spotted Ireland’s first mourning dove there.
One reason why Inishbofin attracts rare species is because it’s the first point of land for birds coming from the US. Also, European birds can fly off course and end up there before realising their mistake and turning back, he adds. So sometimes, it hosts species from different parts of the world, which shouldn’t be found sharing the same habitat. Last year, he spotted a thrush from Siberia on the island. Mr McGeehan was familiar with the cedar waxwing from sightings he had made of the bird in North America.
The tips of the wings and tail of this bird look as if they’ve been dipped in red and yellow wax, hence the name. Their courtship is distinctive as the the male and female will sit together and pass small objects back and forth, such as flower petals or an insect.
“The cedar waxwing primarily lives on insects during summer but by autumn in North America insects have died, so they look for berries,” says Mr McGeehan, who was birdwatching with Mr Nash when they saw the visitor in a wet corner of a field behind the beach at the east end of Inishbofin.
“It took a while to be sure of what it was, because we couldn’t see him properly. Then he came into full view and started to pick blackberries from the hedge.
“He’s the first to be spotted in Ireland and the first found on this side of the Atlantic since 1996. Unfortunately he didn’t have the good grace to hang around,” he jokes.
The cedar waxwing spent about six hours on the island on Wednesday but then, it seems, he flew away, leaving large crowds of disappointed birdwatchers – who had travelled to Bofin just to glimpse him – in his wake.
“He had probably been planning to spend his migration period in Carolina, now he’ll probably end up in Tenerife,” says Mr McGeehan.
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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