Archive News
Volvo Race looks likely to return to city in 2012
Date Published: 02-Oct-2009
By Regina Hennelly
Hopes that the Volvo Ocean Race may be set for a return visit to Galway are running high following a visit by the organisers of the competition to the city harbour last week, the Galway City Tribune can exclusively reveal.
It is understood organisers were so impressed by Galway’s hosting of the stopover last June that they now regard the city as one of the frontrunners in the competition to host the event when it kicks off again in three years’ time.
Of the 82 cities who applied to be considered for a stopover in 2012, only 20 serious candidates remain. A dozen of those are in Europe – including Galway – and a final decision on the host cities will be made early next year.
The major competitor which may have threatened Galway’s chances was Belfast, which had hoped to host a stopover as part of its celebrations to mark 100 years since the construction and demise of theTitanic. It is understood, however, that Northern Ireland is no longer in the running and Galway is the only port on this island being considered at this point.
As part of their visit to the city last week, the team from Volvo attended a meeting with management at Galway Harbour to discuss planned developments at the Docks and to assess the infrastructure available here for a race that promises to be bigger and better.
Speaking to the Galway City Tribune, Harbour Master, Brian Sheridan said the competition to host a stopover was similar to “a city bidding for the Olympics” this time around as the Race now enjoyed such a high profile, but he said he would be optimistic for Galway’s changes at this point.
“We held a very fruitful meeting last week and competition is undoubtedly stiff, but we are in a very good position and we are very optimistic,” he said.
The major stumbling block is the requirement by Volvo that Ireland must enter a boat in the race if Galway is to host a stopover – an expensive stipulation, but plans and negotiations are already underway to make that happen.
The Irish entry in the last Race – the Green Dragon – was built at a cost of €4million and its involvement in the nine-month-long race ran to a total cost well in excess of that.
While the Dragon could be entered again in the next race, improvements in technology and changes in the rules could require a new vessel to be sourced.
The 70ft Green Dragon was earlier this week removed from outside the Aquarium in Salthill and brought into storage at the Docks so that an assessment could be made of whether it could be sufficiently upgraded for 2012.
One member of the conglomerate which owns the Green Dragon, local businessman John Killeen, confirmed yesterday that a serious effort was being made to secure foreign sponsorship to help finance an entry in the next Race.
“You have to have a lot of finance to run a boat around the world, but we are actively working on getting some major international sponsors on board and we are confident,” he said.
Galway’s hosting of the Ocean Race last June generated a massive €45million for the local economy.
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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