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Wegians overcome arch rivals in Cup showdown

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Date Published: 09-Jan-2013

A strong second half showing helped Galwegians to the Connacht Senior Cup title on Saturday afternoon at Corinthian Park and a first ever appearance in the newly structured All-Ireland Cup semi finals on January 19 at home to Leinster champions, St Mary’s College.

The sky blues turned around with the wind trailing by 15-11, in touch mainly thanks to the excellent goal kicking of Tadgh Leader after a half where they had conceded three tries to a fired-up Corinthians.

They second half, however, belonged to the visitors who saw a big improvement from their front five and benefited from some fine attacking play.

Jason East opened the scoring for Galwegians with a first half try after good forward work. That had come after 10 minutes of an excellent defensive effort against a frustrated Corinthians.

The home sided answered straight away with a brilliant try in the corner from Bryan Dixon after a good lineout, a crash ball run from Cian Begley and quick hands on the second phase to score in the corner and make it 5-5.

Leader notched a penalty for the home side, but a forwards’ score from Corinthians with Owen Daly, the winger appearing to get the touchdown, was enough to restore their lead at 10-8.

That lead was extended to seven when Finlay Bealham scored try number three. That came from a lineout 25 metres out with the ball thrown to the back and Aaron Conneely popping down off the top to tighthead Bealham, who burst through a big gap in the middle and ran in almost untouched.

Again the conversion was missed, however, and this was made all the worse by the fact that Tadgh Leader kicked a late three pointer to keep the visitors in touch. He added another after half time to bring his side within one when Finn Gormley was penalised and sin binned for killing the ball underneath his own posts.

Minutes later, the sky blues had a try thanks to more good forward work with the excellent Anthony Ryan getting the touchdown for a 21-15 lead after the conversion.

Leader kicked three more soon after and while Corinthians had their moments in the closing stages, they couldn’t get back in the scoring grove. The title was wrapped up with five minutes remaining when Brian Murphy capped a fine performance in the centre with a try after a kick and chase.

Galwegians had big performances from Brian McClearn, Eoin Rooney and Ryan among others in the second half and will take a lot of confidence from this win heading into the semi final with St Mary’s in two weeks time.

That fixture means their AIL clash with Old Crescent in a fortnight will be re-fixed and while they will be without their Connacht development players who will be on Eagles duty in the B&I Cup, they’ll be hopeful of giving a good account of themselves in that fixture.

Corinthians were stronger than in the November league defeat and are improving as a unit but they again came up short in the derby and the evidence seems clear that the winners are the stronger side in terms of promotion contention in Division 2a. Those three defeats early on might ultimately cost them, but they are a form side for now.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

Galway in Days Gone By

The way we were – Protecting archives of our past

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A photo of Galway city centre from the county council's archives

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

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Galway have lot to ponder in poor show

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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.

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Real Galway flavour to intermediate club hurling battle in Birr

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Date Published: 23-Jan-2013

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