Archive News
World-class athletes set for Ironman
Date Published: {J}
BY ENDA CUNNINGHAM
Up to 60,000 spectators are expected along the route for the Ironman 70.3 Series triathlon this Sunday, which is expected to generate a €5 million cash windfall for Galway.
And a further tourism spin-off is likely to be created when the city, Salthill and parts of Connemara are showcased to tens of millions of TV viewers around the world.
Around 2,400 competitors from 42 countries around the world will take part in the gruelling endurance race, while they are likely to bring up to 6,600 members of families and friends.
The Ironman 70.3 – so called because it involves a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile cycle and 13.1 mile run – will be screened on TG4 and Setanta in Ireland, as well as Channel 4 in the UK.
It will also be screened on America 1, ESPN and Canal+ as well as in their ‘partner’ syndicated territories across the globe. Setanta alone will be broadcasting the event highlights on their networks in Australia, the UK and Asia, while foreign print journalists – from specialist triathlon magazines in the likes of the US, UK and Germany – will also be in Galway.
A TV company from the UK has already arrived in Galway, and will be recording all the events and putting together a highlights package for all the TV networks.
Galwayman Eoin McCormack of E&R Events – which secured the rights to run Ironman 70.3 in Ireland for the next five years – said the response to the event has been overwhelming.
“This is a huge event for the region and for the country. We have people competing from all over the world; Spain, Portugal, Sweden, France, Germany, the US, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Bahrain. We even have people from São Tomé and Príncipe (off the west coast of Africa near the equator)!
“This is the biggest triathlon event in the world. It’s like bringing the PGA Golf Tour to Ireland. There were 60 cities around Europe that wanted the Ironman franchise. And we got it,” said Mr McCormack.
He got the idea to bring the event to Ireland after seeing it in action while living in France, and approached Ironman chiefs with his business partners and fellow Galwaymen Ronan Gilligan and Ruaidhrí Geraghty.
“It’s been a phenomenal success thus far. It’s the second biggest Ironman of its size in Year One, we are the success story of Ironman internationally. The triathlon is the fastest growing individual sport in the UK, there’s a shortage of events there, so there’s huge potential for us to bring people to Ireland.
“We had to shut race entry down after 2,500, it was a huge response. It’s overwhelming, but we’re not really surprise to be honest. Ironman is a very powerful brand, and the market is there for it.
“We didn’t even have to launch our marketing in America, and we got 100 entrants from there. In all, there will be 500 people coming from the States,” said Mr McCormack.
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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