Connacht Tribune
Galway’s goal blitz helps to turns tables on Meath boys
Galway 3-13
Meath 2-9
THE Galway minor footballers did it again! Seven points down in the first-half against Clare in late July, they bounced back to win the All-Ireland quarter-final by seven points. And it was a similar story here, except the revival was probably more spectacular given the quality of the opposition.
Galway trailed by four points at half-time (2-4 to 0-6) and with just over 20 minutes of the All-Ireland semi-final to be played, they were five points in arrears . . . and still they emerged victorious with seven points to spare to set up a September 2 showdown with Kerry, who are chasing five-in-a-row at this grade.
At times in the opening half it looked like Meath might get a run on them. But these Tribesmen are never beaten and they somehow summonsed the strength to turn this game on its head with another remarkable revival.
A couple of timely substitutions and reducing the number of mistakes, allied with a grit and determination from a few key players who stood up and were counted – it’s becoming a trademark of this team – piled the pressure on Meath, who had no response.
Of course, the second-half goals from Eoghan Tinney, Oisín McCormack, and Tony Gill were crucial. One stabilised the Galway men; two sent their confidence soaring; and three proved a killer blow to the Royal County.
It was a devastating 20-plus minutes from Dónal Ó Fátharta’s charges, who blew away a much-fancied Meath outfit with a complete display of clinical Gaelic football, the way it should be played, with pace and passion.
During that final third of the game, Galway outscored the Leinster champions by 3-6 to 0-3; it was as comprehensive a finish as Galway could have hoped for.
What was even more noteworthy was that it wasn’t until the 59th minute when Galway’s main marksman of the championship campaign, Oughterard clubman Ryan Monaghan, landed his first score of the day (free); and Matthew Cooley, a real dangerman in the corner, who has become a ‘marked man’ since his provincial final heroics, was held scoreless.
If you knew that would be the case beforehand, you’d say Galway hadn’t a hope of toppling Meath but Monaghan’s uncharacteristic off-day on placed balls was compensated elsewhere, particularly with fellow wing-back Cathal Sweeney chipping in with three first-half points and a man-of-the-match performance.Of course, the second-half goals from Eoghan Tinney, Oisín McCormack, and Tony Gill were crucial. One stabilised the Galway men; two sent their confidence soaring; and three proved a killer blow to the Royal County.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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The nurses’ union has formally urged the Chief Fire Officer to investigate 17 alleged breaches of the fire regulations as a result of chronic overcrowding in the emergency department at University Hospital Galway.
It’s the second time the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) has done so since Christmas, fearing the lives of staff and patients are being put in grave danger.
The emergency department was busier than normal last week, with between 222 and 251 patients turning up to be seen per day. On Wednesday of last week there were 53 patients waiting on trolleys, according to figures released by the Saolta Hospital group. That went down to 47 on Thursday and Friday.
This week has seen little let up. On Monday and Tuesday the number of people who could only get a trolley was down to 36 and 38 respectively.
Local area representative of the INMO, Anne Burke, said as a result of very high attendances at the temporary emergency department, management had opened a transit area where between 12 and 14 people could be accommodated in cubicles.
Get the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.
If you Google Damien Comer, the first entry the search returns is a dedicated Wikipedia page, which declares: “He’s better than David Clifford”.
And while Wikipedia as a source of fact isn’t necessarily always reliable, who are we to argue with it?
But whatever about comparisons with Kerry greats, the Annaghdown clubman is certainly up there among Galway’s finest ever footballers.
Winning a first All-Star last season, from his third nomination, was proof of that. It was a special personal accolade, but he’d trade it in a shot for a Celtic Cross.
“It was nice to get but if I finish my career not having won an All-Ireland, I’ll be very disappointed,” he declared.
Comer hints that the 2022 All-Ireland final loss to Kerry last July was not one of his better games in maroon, and it’s one he thinks about regularly.
“Yeah, I would yeah, I’d think about it a bit. But I try to forget it as well, because it wasn’t a good day for me, personally, anyway.
“You try to forget about it and yet you have to try to learn from it and improve on the mistakes you made, and stuff you didn’t do that you should’ve done, and different things that you can bring to this season.
“It’s one that’s hard to forget about really because we were there for so long. Sixty minutes in, neck-and-neck, and then they just pulled away, so it was disappointing,” he said.
Damien Comer has teamed up with Specsavers to encourage people to take a more proactive approach to their eye and hearing health. There’s a full interview with him ahead of Sunday’s National Football League Final, is in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.
Galway businessman Paul Grealish remembers the moment back in 2000 when he was given a sheet of paper and asked to write about his life. He was on weekend-long self-development course that he’d been sent on by his brother John. At the time, John was managing director of their family business for which Paul and their sister, Joan, also worked.
“The course was probably done in an attempt to make it easier to manage me,” says Paul with a laugh, adding that he “was tough to manage” back then.
He was enjoying the course – until he received that blank sheet.
“I got about four or five sentences in, writing about my early life. Until I got to the primary school part . . . I was in tears,” he remembers. “I was so used to compartmentalising things, I didn’t see the danger.”
In the early 1970s, aged nine and ten years, Paul had been beaten and sexually abused by his teacher, Brother Thomas Caulfield, at Tuam CBS primary school.
He had repressed those memories for nearly three decades.
“You bury the memory, and you bury it as deep as you can. There’s an awareness of something terrible there but it’s too frightening for you to actively remember.”
Paul was so terrified of those memories that he’d lost all recollection of his childhood. He couldn’t tell his story.
He was meant to show it to one of the course leaders – a counsellor, he thinks. Instead, Paul put the nearly-blank sheet before the man and explained what had happened.
Realising Paul’s plight, that man gave him a list of phone numbers for counsellors in Galway.
“Every now and again, I’d look at it and think about ringing them but I didn’t,” Paul says.
However, the abuse that had robbed Paul of his childhood and blighted his adulthood with feelings of guilt and self-hatred refused to stay buried. Finally, he knew he had to deal with it. That journey began in the early 2000s and Paul finally got closure earlier this month when Caulfield was sentenced to 27 months in prison – with the final seven suspended – for his crime.
Read Paul’s full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.
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