Archive News
WeÕre being ripped off royally by our distinguished tourists
Date Published: {J}
I would love to know the cost of Prince Albert’s ‘Royal visit’ to Ireland last week – because if it was more than fifty pence, we were…well, royally ripped off.
Some called it a dress rehearsal for the Queen which will cost us at least €7 million in security, which is a lot of money for a couple who could have used their free travel passes and taken the train. Instead we’ll have armed protectors as the old dears take a look around Croke Park on a quiet day and visit the Garden of Remembrance where they’d do well not to remember why we opened this garden in the first place.
In fairness Albert did drop in on the Marine Institute – complete with an entourage to match his ego – and he signed a memorandum of understanding which is supposed to foster greater links between here and Monaco.
The good people at the Marine Institute will undoubtedly do their best to make that worthwhile but it remains to be seen whether or the Prince remembers what he promised given that he’s finally getting married at the age of 53 – a move which will, thankfully for him, end those spurious rumours that he’s gay.
In fairness, any man who’s had as many paternity cases of Prince Albert can rightfully claim to have done his level best to sire a son and heir before settling down with the former Olympic swimmer and Princess Grace lookalike contest winner, Charlene Wittstock.
Poor Charlene looked as bored as an eight year old child at midnight Mass, probably thinking that when she signed up for life as the wife of a multi-millionaire Prince it would not involve glasses of stout in Newport or walking around dilapidated old cottages in the west of Ireland rain.
And look at the old Kelly homestead you’d have to wonder – if we took such pride in this link to Grace Kelly, why isn’t there a roof on it?
At least Charlene didn’t have to pay for the whole circus – we did. And there were fleets of black limos and Gardaí deployed in case some decided that the Prince of Monaco was suddenly a world leader of some importance as opposed to a bald, middle aged man trying to keep his young blonde fiancé out of a coma from sheer boredom.
And as for the benefits, if anyone actually thinks that multi-millionaire tax exiles will sail off in their yachts, leaving behind the sun and sheer wealth of this makeshift Principality to enjoy the bracing wind and rain of Ireland, they are deluded enough to work for the Department of Finance.
In fairness to Barack Obama, he sees these Irish trips for what they are – a photo opportunity (the price for which is a half an hour of shaking hands) all in the name of trying to claim a slice of the Irish-American vote for his re-election effort.
Even his own handlers now seem embarrassed by the speed of this visit and it looks like he’ll have to book in somewhere overnight so as not to give the impression that this is the equivalent of a toilet stop on his way to the big gig.
Either way, he’ll only be here long enough to say top o’ the mornin to Croke Park and begorrah to Moneygall before he heads off to the UK for his real visit – although, in fairness, now that he might be staying a little longer he could cram in a few holes of golf.
Obama hasn’t time to be supping tea with his eighth cousins from the Queen’s County or downing pints in Durty Nelly’s – this man is running the western world.
For more, read 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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