Archive News
Visitors step back in time for lesson in city’s history
Date Published: 23-Aug-2012
The chances are that most of us who visit a foreign city will opt for a guided tour of our destination to find out more about its history and culture.
It’s something we rarely do at home. But a swashbuckling new initiative, spearheaded by Fáilte Ireland and Galway City’s Latin Quarter, is offering visitors and locals alike a fresh take on the city’s medieval history and some of its most famous landmarks.
Tribes Alive! is written by Páraic Breathnach and directed by Rod Goodall, whose creative partnership stretches back to the 1980s when they were both leading lights in Macnas Theatre Company. The 60-minute walking tour will be given by four local actors who will recreate – in a lively manner – some of the more colourful events from Galway’s past.
“There will be drumming and duels and fish throwing and some issues being left unresolved in true historical fashion,” says the author, who designed and sourced the props for the piece as well as writing it.
“The tour is a real history in terms of days and dates and references – and then I interpret the facts using different characters,” Páraic explains.
The performance tour begins and ends at the city’s Museum, with the story of how Galway got its name kick-starting this unusual history lesson.
“I did a similar event for Cúirt a few years ago – it was a literary history of Galway and it got a great response,” says Páraic of the background to this project.
Participants will be divided into groups, representing families from the city’s 14 famous medieval merchant tribes. Galway had its own coins in medieval times, so they will also be given special money for the duration of the event. This will be used to pay tolls and to buy drink in Blake’s Tower at the bottom of Quay Street, which will be used as both a prison and a bar during the dramatic tour.
“We give a sense of this being a powerful city, at the crossing of the river into Connacht and also an international sea port,” says Páraic of Galway’s role in medieval times.
Some of the characters who will step from the pages of history include Humanity Dick Martin, born in 1754, who founded the Royal Society of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. There is the famous United Irishman, Theobald Wolfe Tone who was executed for his role in the 1798 rising; the 13th century Richard de Burgo, otherwise known as The Red Earl; and the 15th century explorer Christopher Columbus. No history of Galway would be complete without a Claddagh fishwife, according to the author, and in this instance, his creation is arrested for trying to sell fish to tourists.
Each scene in the tour is about three or four minutes long, explains Páraic – when writing the piece he used research carried out by Bord Fáilte’s on the mechanics of staging a history tour.
That research provided him with techniques for building moments of excitement, giving trails of information and allowing time for people to communicate with the actors.
Before putting pen to paper, Páraic did some background historical work on the events he wanted to recreate.
“I knew all the stories but there was a lot of research on dates and details and the language of the time.
“There are bilingual elements in it, and there are bits of French and Spanish of course,” says Páraic, referring to Galway’s historic trading links with France and Spain, which were at their peak during the Middle Ages.
The city was a wealthy one during this period, and at the 14th century Hall of the Red Earl (behind the Quays Bar) people will be given information on the type of menu that would have been served at a medieval feast, including eel soup.
“The first municipal building in Galway was the Hall of the Red Earl,” says Páraic, explaining that it was used for administration, justice and collecting taxes as well as holding banquets. Today, in a nice twist, it still retains one of those functions, serving as home to the city’s Custom House.
HIsctoric events the performers will re-enact include a duel involving Richard Martin (1754-1834) parliamentarian and founder of the RSPCA, whose fondness for duelling earned him the nickname Trigger. Richard Martin also founded Galway’s first theatre, at Kirwan’s Lane in 1783, where Wolfe Tone was performing when he was arrested for his role in the 1798 Rebellion.
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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