By Eanna O’Reilly

WHEN the Galway camogie team lined out against Cork on Sunday at Croke Park, they had a number of key tasks which were crucial to their success. They had to stop Cork from getting into their usual pattern of play. They had to stop them from dominating possession in the middle third, and they had to match Cork from a physical and athletic point of view.

Galway always possessed the skill levels to match the Leesiders, but those other components were absolutely essential parts of the match day brief for Cathal Murray’s charges.

On all counts, Galway produced the goods on the day. The intensity of their tackling made it extremely difficult for Cork to work the ball out from defence, which is so often the Rebels’ starting point for engineering scores. Cork are used to being able to find each other with short passes and work the ball through the lines.

Galway stopped that in its tracks for the majority of Sunday’s final. Cork players were swarmed in possession, forced to run down blind alleys, and turned over by the ravenous players in maroon. The physicality Galway brought in their tackling visibly took the Rebels by surprise.

Cork so often dominate their opponents in the physical stakes, while they are rarely matched for athleticism and ball winning capabilities. However, the Tribeswomen were more then a match for them in every department. The aggression and doggedness displayed by Cathal Murray’s charges from the outset made it clear that the Leesiders were not going to have it all their own way.

Galway played in Cork’s faces and never allowed them to settle, forcing them to play on the back foot. Ger Manley’s charges were visibly rattled, and it wasn’t long before their frustrations boiled over. Hannah Looney’s moment of madness which resulted in her red card reflected a team which was being taken well outside their comfort zone.

Cork’s much vaunted forward line had been shooting the lights out all year. The Rebels had put up staggering scoring totals and flattened everything in their path during this year’s championship. Most pundits simply couldn’t countenance any team being able to contain their attack.

The Tribeswomen had different ideas. Cork’s starting six forwards registered two points from play for sixty one minutes of the game. The likes of Amy O’Connor, Katrina Mackey, and Sorcha McCartan were all substituted after being remarkably subdued. Saoirse McCarthy failed to register a score from play.

It was a testament to the determination, doggedness, and no little skill of the Galway back six. Siobhán Gardiner’s role in marking McCarthy was a tremendous success. The 2023 player of the year had some moments of quality, but her influence was far below its usual level thanks to Gardiner’s efforts.

Ciara Hickey’s role as a deep lying centre back was hugely effective in the opening half, while she was also excellent as the loose defender in the second period. Hickey read the game to great effect, and her positioning made it very difficult for Cork to get their forwards on the ball in space.

Either side of her, Gardiner and Dervla Higgins were typically powerful and put Galway on the front foot throughout the match. Galway’s half backs also used possession well and provided good ball for their forwards.

Pictured: Galway’ defender Dervla Higgins is sent flying by Cork’s Cliona Healy during the All-Ireland Senior Camogie Final at Croke Park on Sunday. Photo:c NPHO/Tom O’Hanlon

A major new group exhibition, The Air We Share, will open in the city’s Galway Arts Centre on Saturday, August 16, and will run until September 29.

It will feature work from artists Christopher Steenson, Leon Butler, and Sam Vardy and Paula McCloskey – Vardy and McCloskey work as a collective under the moniker, A place of their own.

The work in this show is the result of an artist residency programme that involved a local community in the city as it explored air quality, climate and people’s shared environment.

Over a nine-month period the artists worked with scientists, and with residents and community groups in the Westside area to respond creatively to air pollution research and people’s experiences of pollution. The aim was to create a greater understanding of air and its critical role in our shared lives.

Leon Butler’s Phosphene, created as part of the initiative, is a project that transforms real-time air quality data into sculptural and digital forms, inviting people to co-design how environmental data is experienced and interpreted.

Christopher Steenson’s Where Does the Body End? takes the idea of the atmosphere as a physical body to explore how we are connected to the world around us through breath. Incorporating writing, sculpture and kinetic elements, the installation draws on concepts from philosophy and meditation to create an evolving ambient soundscape that responds to live air quality data detected in the gallery.

A place of their own (Paula McCloskey and Sam Vardy) have created The 9 Freedoms for the Air, a speculative, collaborative artwork imagining future air rights. This was developed through workshops with residents, scientists and legal experts.

A programme of talks, guided tours, and public events will take place at the Arts Centre for the duration for the run, taking place on Thursday evenings.

Deputy Mayor of Galway City Alan Cheevers will officially open The Air we Share this Saturday, August 16,  at 2pm. The guest speaker will be Annie Fletcher, Director of the Irish Museum of Modern Art.

The Air We Share was led by Galway City Council and includes Galway Arts Centre, the University of Galway’s Centre for Creative Technologies, the Centre for Climate and Air Pollution Studies and the Insight SFI Centre for Data Analytics, Westside Resource Centre, and Galway Culture Company.

More information available at www.theairweshare.ie.

Pictured: This exhibition with an environmental theme was the result of a nine-month residency, which involved the selected artists collaborating with members of the city’s Westside community and scientists across different disciplines.

Galway United 0

Shamrock Rovers 0

WHERE has this kind of performance been for the last couple of months? Galway United ended a run of four straight league defeats on Sunday afternoon when taking a thoroughly deserved point at home to champions-elect, Shamrock Rovers.

Not only did John Caulfield’s side hold the Hoops scoreless in what was an entertaining draw, they didn’t allow the visitors have a single effort on target across the 90-plus minutes: you would do well to find another league game where Stephen Bradley’s side didn’t have at least one effort on target.

A fully-committed performance from the home side also meant that Rovers scarcely-believable run of 13 wins on the bounce at the Dyke Road venue was finally ended. The last time United took anything from a home league game with the Hoops was all the way back in September 2008 when Jesper Jorgensen scored in a 1-1 draw.

That was just one part of a historic appalling record for United against Rovers, but things have evened-out a little in recent seasons, with the sides drawing four of their last six meetings, though United are still waiting for a first win league win over Rovers since 2006.

They could have had that on Sunday evening, only to be denied by a string of fine saves from Ed McGinty: it says a lot that the only Rovers player to make the League’s team of the week was McGinty, who was joined in that all-star XI by David Hurley and Rob Slevin.

His reflex save from Dara McGuinness 10 minutes from time in particular was a stunning piece of goalkeeping: since the game, there has been some talk that the ball hit the back-net support before bouncing out, rather than McGinty saving it, but countless rewinds of the footage still doesn’t provide a compelling case for that.

The build-up to the game was dominated locally by the news that a number of United players have signed pre-contract agreements with other clubs ahead of the 2026 season, but that was soon put into perspective by a more sobering announcement on Saturday.

A statement issued by the club confirmed that Ollie Horgan had stepped down from his role as assistant manager, and while it didn’t go into detail, word soon spread that the Salthill native is facing a major health battle.

One of the league’s nicest people and a true character, the esteem in which he is held across the league, and the level of warmth towards him, was evident by the bombardment of messages coming from fans and clubs near and far throughout the weekend. We add our own voice to those words.

As for the game itself, United made three changes to the side beaten a week earlier in Turners Cross, with Killian Brouder and Greg Cunningham coming into the defence; while Patrick Hickey made his first start in six games as the centre-point of a three-man attack in an unusual 5-2-3 set-up by United.

Pictured: Galway United’s Garry Buckley is chased by Aaron Greene of Shamrock Rovers during Sunday’s Premier Division tie at Eamonn Deacy Park. Photo: Joe O’Shaughnessy.

An assessment of the benefits and financial viability of a new fire station in the city is underway, after plans to deliver the long-awaited facility took another step forward in recent weeks.

This follows a meeting between officials from Galway City and County Councils and the Department of Local Government at which it was agreed to proceed with a ‘capital appraisal’ of the project.

Responding to queries from the Galway City Tribune, a spokesperson for the City Council confirmed that this appraisal was now underway and would be completed “in the coming months” for submission to the Department for its review.

“The output from the meeting was very positive and it was agreed to progress the plans for a new fire station, starting with preparation of the high-level capital appraisal assessment with a view to having it submitted in the coming months,” said the spokesperson.

They said a final decision was yet to be taken on the location of the new station, which would replace the outdated facility in the Claddagh from which the fire service currently operates.

“Following acceptance of the capital appraisal, potential sites will need to be fully assessed for suitability,” the spokesperson added.

At the July meeting of Galway City Council, Chief Executive Leonard Cleary said they were working closely with the County Council — which is the lead authority on fire services for the city and county — to progress a much-needed new fire station.

“We are completing a design process on a site in Galway City,” said Mr Cleary, adding that he would “expect that the Department will be favourably disposed”.

Responding to questions from Cllr Donal Lyons (Ind) at the meeting, Mr Cleary confirmed that a City Council-owned site was among those under consideration, and, referring to the Department, he said: “It is my understanding we are pushing an open door.”

The current fire station in the Claddagh was built in 1956 and has long been described as ‘unfit for purpose’.

It is a base for 36 fire fighters and headquarters for 118 staff across County Galway.

Mr Cleary said the County Council had been ‘very supportive’ of the ongoing process to find a new base for the service and committed to briefing councillors on the specifics of the site selection in the autumn.

There would be significant public consultation as the plans progressed, he added, which he said was particularly important when it came to the location of ‘blue-light services’.

Pictured: Galway Fire Station: Built in 1956.

Eurovision fans of a certain vintage will remember Happy Man – but these days Cork singer Cathal Dunne is building a second life for himself as a writer. And he’ s delved deep into history – to Athenry and the Great Hunger – for his first novel.

The man who finished fifth for Ireland at the 1979 Eurovision held in Jerusalem has lived in the US since the early eighties, but that has never broken the bonds with his native land.

And now Mercier Press are publishing his debut novel, Athenry, a story of historical fiction set at the height of the Great Famine in the autumn of 1845 – exactly 180 years on from that darkest of times.

“It’s the story of Liam O’Donaghue, an Athenry father who refuses to watch his family starve,” says the singer-turned-author who is also a nephew of former Taoiseach, the late Jack Lynch.

Set ‘in the shadow of Galway’s cliffs’, Liam has carved out a life training Connemara ponies while working on his landlord’s estate and loving his wife Máire.

When their newborn son arrives, their happiness seems complete. But when the Great Famine strikes with merciless fury, survival becomes the only currency that matters.

One desperate night – and one choice that changes everything – takes the novel’s hero on an epic journey from the depths of famine to the abundance of Australian gold rushes where he meets his friend Kumba.

Together they journey onward to the California Gold Rushes, chasing fortune and the hope of return – while back at home, Máire faces her own battle to keep their son alive in a land where hope itself has withered.

Athenry marks a return to the spotlight here for the Cork native domiciled in Pittsburgh with his wife Kathleen and son Ryan – although, in recent years, he penned the new hurling anthem ‘Cork My Home’.

He first came to prominence in 1979 when he entered his own composition, Happy Man, into the National Song Contest where he saw off former Irish Eurovision entrants Tina and Red Hurley and future winner Johnny Logan.

Performing in Jerusalem at Eurovision that March, he achieved a respectable fifth place with 80 points – and the single went on to reach number three in the Irish charts.

Athenry – A Famine Tale of Love and Survival, by Cathal Dunne, is published now by Mercier Press.

Pictured: Singer-turned-author Cathal Dunne.

A new 84-home social housing scheme in Knocknacarra is expected to be ready for occupation by the end of 2027.

Galway City Council has announced that the contract for the development of the new scheme, named ‘Fána an tSrutháin’, at Ballyburke, has been awarded to OCC Construction.

The project involves the design and build of 84 residential units together with a new central community/neighbourhood plaza area, local centre units, a café and crèche facility as well as a landscaped amphitheatre.

The development, located off the Ballymoneen Road, forms part of Galway City Council’s Housing For All Action Plan and will include the use of Modern Methods of Construction (MMC).

MMC is used to describe a range of offsite manufacturing and innovative onsite techniques that provide alternatives to traditional construction techniques. The National Housing for All Policy identified MMC as one of the innovative developments that should be encouraged in the delivery of housing.

The scheme, which was designed and brought through the Part 8 Planning process by the Galway City Architects Department, is made up of 71 apartments across four blocks and 13 terraced family units.

Of the apartments, 40% are designed as age friendly / universal design units which will be located adjacent to the local centre services proposed.

Speaking at the contract signing, Leonard Cleary, Chief Executive, Galway City Council said he was delighted to see the scheme reach this important milestone.

“This project will provide much needed housing units in an efficient manner, enhance infrastructure, and improve facilities for residents in the area,” he added.

The contract for the Design and Build of the new development was signed in City Hall on Monday, appointing OCC Construction to deliver the project. The Technical Advisor team for Galway City Council will be led by van Dijk Architects, and Galway City Council’s Housing Capital Section will manage the project.

Works on site will commence in the coming weeks and it is anticipated that the development will be completed in late 2027.

This brings to 1,120 the number of social housing units to be delivered in Galway City in the period 2022-2027, with more in development.

Pictured: Fána an tSrutháin will consist of 71 apartments across four blocks and 13 terraced family units.