Archive News
Volvo Race fleet finally has Galway in its sights
Date Published: 21-Jun-2012
The activities around Galway Docks and harbour this week were the clearest indication yet that the Volvo Ocean Race is on its way to Galway, but the fleet still has a final leg to negotiate – and at least one skipper determined to ensure this race is far from over.
Veteran Puma skipper Ken Read has vowed he and his crew will keep on fighting until the very end for a chance to lift the Volvo Ocean Race trophy in Galway, despite lying 23 points behind leaders and Lorient leg winners Groupama.
It’s a tall order because while there are 30 points for the leg winner – not to mention in-port racing points up for grabs – there are 25 and 20 points for second and third, and Groupama, with Kerryman Damien Foxall on board, have yet to take less than 20 points on a leg.
But although Groupama go into the final two three scoring opportunities with a 23 point advantage over PUMA, Read said his team were far from ready to concede defeat.
“It is Groupama’s race to lose now,” he said. “But that is not to say we are not going to fight tooth and nail for it. They realise they have this thing in their grasp and I am guessing they will do a good job of finishing this race off.
“But, if they don’t want to do that, then we will take it from them, I guarantee that.”
Leg 8 race from Lisbon to Lorient was short – and anything but sweet. Just shy of 2,000 miles, the penultimate leg eventually saw Groupama earn the break they needed, completing a heroic comeback that firmed their grip on the overall standings and realising a dream homecoming to their base in Lorient.
"It’s a very good feeling for sure," Groupama skipper Franck Cammas said. "It’s a dream we had ten months ago and now we have made it reality."
Camper were second, followed by Puma in third and Abu Dhabi fourth – all within the space of three hours.
Groupama earned 30 points to move on to a total of 219 points, 23 points clear of their nearest rivals Puma Ocean Racing, who moved into second place with 196. Camper are five points further back, level with Telefónica after they held off a late challenge from Team Sanya to take fifth.
Sanya gave it everything on that final day, just as they have done from the start, but once again they had to settle for sixth in a race where they have been overpowered by five newer and quicker designs.
With just one short leg to Galway and two in-port races remaining Groupama are in a strong position to claim overall victory in their debut Volvo Ocean Race.
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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