Archive News
Under starterÕs orders at Galway Greyhound Track
Date Published: {J}
PADDY O’Gorman ambles forth, a wizened, aged man hardened by nature’s dithering mood swings and its long winter nights. The meandering contours of his friendly face read like the flowing lines of a first edition literary classic.
As a long serving employee of Galway Greyhound Stadium – over half a century of his life he has dedicated to the sporting cauldron – O’Gorman is as intricately linked to the venue as the venue is indelibly linked to him.
Those altruistic years of selfless service were acknowledged recently when Glenamaddy greyhound owner, breeder and now trainer, PJ Fahy took over the sponsorship of the race formerly known as the Galway Jacket and renamed it the Paddy O’Gorman Grand Prix.
For O’Gorman – the ever-present starter at the track – it was a pleasant surprise … one that truly overwhelmed him. “I was surprised,” admits the unassuming and shy pensioner, as he sits in the lobby of the stadium’s magnificent stand.
Outside greyhound circles, little is known about O’Gorman. That is no surprise given he is not a loud or brash individual but, quite simply, a man who revels in the simplicity of his life on College Road.
“I am a Galway native, College Road,” says Paddy. “I suppose, I started my career here in 1953 as a greyhound jockey. At the same time, my late mother Maureen used to sell the cards at the main gate.
“As a greyhound jockey, though, I would lead out the greyhounds. I was at that for a few years until I was appointed the official starter at the track. It was a move up the ladder. I have been doing that job for 56 years.”
No surprise, then, that O’Gorman has seen much change over the last six decades, watching on as the sporting landscape of the city’s most famous field was transformed almost beyond recognition.
“When I first started, there was just a long green shed and that was the stand. The kennels were just up against the back of the wall and the only heating system was two half tar barrels, with turf and timber burned in the winter.
“In the late 60s or early 70s, that progressed to the covered stand, which was in existence until the stadium progressed to what it is today.
“In the early days there was two nights of racing, Tuesday and Friday. Even then, they used to come from all over Ireland. In those days, you had dogs like Spanish Battleship. He raced in Galway, and I remember him dead heating with Portalar Lad one night. It was Spanish Battleship’s last race in his career. He was the only dog to win the Irish Derby three times in a row (1953 to ‘55). He was a very famous dog in the 50s.
“There were also other good dogs, such as the likes of Masonbrook Flier, Clear Lodge, Marco Polo, Grand Canal – he was an English Derby winner – and you had Peruvian Style, which equalled an Irish record for winning races in Ireland.”
Of course, there have been others, too many to mention, but looking towards more recent runners, O’Gorman says there is one breeding line that has taken the racing world by storm.
For more read page 51 of this week’s Connacht 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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