Galway Advertiser 1996/1996_02_29/GA_29021996_E1_014.pdf 

Extracted text

G o m m e n t

&

L e t t e r s

A.I.B.'S SUPPORT FOR TRADITIONAL MUSIC

Hailing A Cab!
Dear Editor In my opinion the public and possibly the authorities are being duped by the misleading statements being made to the press about there being an ade quate hackney or taxi service in the Galway area. The real evi dence is there for all to see. I invite the Galway advertis er's reporters and the authori ties to go to Eyre Square on a Saturday Night in the period from midnight onwards and they will be confronted by masses of people trying to get a taxi home with only the odd taxi arriving at the rank. Go along to the Hackney office and they will be told they have to wait for up to an hour or more. This is what my daughter experienced last Saturday night when there was a bit of ice on the roads. She rang me up at l-30am and I travelled in 9 miles on icy roads. When I arrived at Eyre Square at 2am there were people milling around everywhere in the freezing cold. Many rushed up to me thinking I was a taxi. My Daughter's friends gave up waiting at the square and went to the Hackney office to be told to wait half an hour. The people who came in after them were told to wait another hour! Where were all the excess hackneys/taxis then? On mak ing further enquiries I have been told that there is also a severe shortage on some other nights at Eyre Sq and also at Salthill. Either there are far too few licenced in Galway or the own ers are not prepared to offer the public a proper service when it is most needed. This should be looked into and more licences issued as quickly as possible to rectify this disgraceful situa tion and provide an acceptable service for the people of Galway and its many visitors. Yours....disgusted!

O

n Tuesday evening the second A.I.B. Traditional Music Award was pre sented to Frankie Gavin, the renowned fiddle player who co-founded De Dannan, the superb traditional music group that last year celebrated its 21st anniversary. Frankie has also demonstrated his extraordinary versatility by playing with the brilliant violinist Yehudi Menuhin, harmonica player extraordi naire Larry Adler, and that other long-established band, The Rolling Stones. Banks are normally seen as very sober institutions, streets away from the unin hibited freedom that goes with late night sessions in a pub. But not the A.I.B., which has shown an admirable appreciation of the importance of traditional music for Galway, not only as an integral part of the culture of the West of Ireland, but also for the contribution it makes to the financial health of both City and County in terms of entertainment-related employment. The A.I.B. is to be warmly congratulated for sponsoring this imaginative award, that recognises the central position of traditional music in Galway, both in terms of the pleasure it gives and the promise it holds.

PRIMARY WARFARE
very four years the United States of America passes through a curious process called the Primaries, as a sort of pre-battle warm-up to the Presidential Election campaign. Because the United States is a democra cy, so the theory goes, the candidates for each party ought not to be picked in some smoky backroom by party wheelers and dealers but by the great American public. And so, several months before the Republican Party (aka as the 'Grand Old Party', though no one is quite sure why) and the Democratic Party (whose choice of an a long-eared ass as party symbol must have begun as a joke) each hold their Conventions at which they will choose their candidates and runningmates, all those who feel they ought to be selected to lead their party's battle to gain the prize of the White House troop off to states like New Hampshire and Iowa and Arizona where they spend several weeks criss-crossing the respective state, heaping as much scorn and contempt on their fellow party members as pos sible, in an effort to convince the citizens of these states that they should cast their votes in their direction. All the frantic activity and character assassination, and all those votes cast do not actually elect them to anything. In theory, any candidate who wins one of these Primaries is building up points that are supposed to help them win their party's nomination at the Summer Convention. But, in fact, those attending the Conventions are under no legal obligation to give their votes to the candidate who has won them, often at considerable expense. So the question cannot fail to sug gest itself: why bother? It wasn't always like this. Examine Presidential campaigns as recently as forty years ago and you will be lucky if you find any references to Primaries. Back then it was a simple matter of the big-wigs of the Republican or Democratic parties having a few drinks in a smoke-filled hotel room and deciding between them selves who should get the nomination. It was actually John Kennedy who focused attention on the Primary system. This as because, as a Catholic, there was what pundits today would describe as a 'credibility gap' when it came to electing a Catholic to the highest office in the land, the fear being that he might take orders from the Pope in Rome. Kennedy decided to use the hitherto ignored Primaries to show that the American public would buy into a Catholic president. And it worked a treat; JFK swept the Primaries and arrived at the Democratic convention with the nomination almost sewn up. Unfortunately, he had created a monster. For in the run-up to every Convention since 1960, Primaries have come to play an enormous role in the 4-yearly selec tion process. They cost a fortune, so only candidates with big bucks need apply, and they present the bewildered with the bizarre spectacle of members of the same party brutally and bloodily skewering each other to win the votes of the same party. The incumbent president, who this year is Bill Clinton, does not have to sub ject himself to these indignities; by virtue of his position, he is - unless he has really screwed things up - automatically his party's standard-bearer. At the moment the Republican candidates - Robert Dole, Lamar Alexander, and Pat Buchanan, who thinks Hitler was a terrific political organiser but maybe took things a little too far, are battling it out, while Bill sits like Buddha, above the unseemly and noisy contest. It is too soon yet to predict who will be the Republican to fight Clinton, but of one thing you can be sure: by the time the Republicans have picked their candidate all the others will be falling over them selves to acclaim him (a her is most unlikely) as the wisest, most principled, most honourable....the party has ever nominated before (except the last time, that is.)

E

Calling M a r t h a W a r d e ? few years ago family. Dear Editor, Francis Moffett in I am trying to locate Martha If anyone knows of Martha, her beautiful little book Warde, a friend of my mother. or her family, and can be of any of memories of growing Martha is now about age 54. help in locating her, please up in Galway told of her She went to the United States contact me in care of Mary experiences as a universi in 1960. We believe that she Moriarity, 53 New Housing came from County Galway. Estate, Dublin Road, Tuam, ty student as the Irish Martha went to Albany, New Co. Galway. state came into existence York, through an agency to Thank You, almost seventy years ago. work as a nanny for the Sands Ellen Kreithmeier As a young woman stu dent at U.C.G. she felt strongly the restriction, often trivial, imposed by the authorities. There was a lady Superintendent whose duties included the chaper oning of any picnic or T h e excursion in which women students took part. She also Dear Sir A d v e r t i s e r saw to it that women stu Sunday was a nice sunny day. I gave up my afternoon to join dents dressed decorously. with the peace meeting which was scheduled for Eyre Square in D o e s N o t Galway. For example the young " S a v e Like other citizens I felt I must show that I want peace in All Miss Moffett was repreof Ireland. When I arrived at the square I was surprised at the manded for wearing a rib G a l w a y relatively small attendance. I thought, perhaps the peace meet bon in her somewhat ing on last Thursday had diluted the number of people prepared unruly B a y " to gather for peace. When I had heard the meeting being pro hair! moted its non political nature wasemphasised. No placards were "Ribbons are not allowed Dear Sir, to be carried, and no political groups were to be represented. We, members of the save in College", she was told. As I joined the crowd I noticed a series of placards on display. Reading her account, one Galway Bay Group and citi These were Sinn Fienn placards. Was I there as a peaceful cit zens of Galway, wish to high must be struck by the fact izen or was I there promoting the Sinn Fienn cause. To the pass that the opening of univer light the selectivity and bias er by it looked like the gathered people were there to support of the Galway Advertiser in sity education to women Nationalist extremists in the north, rather than, people just was a fairly new phenome its reporting on the Mutton wanting to add their voice to their demand for peace. Island issueover the years. non at that time. Women I don't need advice from the Sinn Fein/IRA as to how we Headlines such as "Brussels were excluded from uni should have peace. I don't need placards to represent my desire Confusion" do not clear the air versity degrees in Ireland for peace. Rather I felt I had gone along to express my desire for or aid debate on the location of until peace and to apologise for the "work" of their fellow travellers Galway's sewege treatment the establishment of the plant location. We all wish to in the bombing of England over the last two weekends. Royal University of see an end to sewege pollution I must Mr. Editor, express my anger for their cheek in hijack ing the peace rally in Galway and trying to imply that we all Ireland. in the Bay, this is not soley the support the northern violence for their type of a murderous "Just It was an examining body preserve of the Galway and from the beginning it Corporation or the Dept. for Peace". I must protest further that the honest voice of the con cerned citizens have been usurped by a crowd of Belfast "rent a degrees were open to stu the Environment. It is time that dents of either sex. Queen's this was reflected in your crowd". And that the people of the north will loose out in the support people like me would have the peace movement, had College Galway, however, newspaper did not have any women As a "community newspa not the "boys", hijacked our Galway meeting. graduates until Hannah A. per" , your coverage of com Signed A peace seeking Galwegian. Moylan took her B.S. in munity issues should surely be even handed, yet countless let 18%. Margaret Aimers and Margaret Clarke were the ters have been submitted on T H I S W E E K . . . first Arts graduates of the the issue to you and never sur Galway College when they faced. We took the B.A. in 1900. obviously don't expect all such When Agnes M. Perry took letters to be publishedbut it her B.A. in 1903 she was would seem that proponents of the sixth women to gradu the scheme haveeasier access to your pages. ate in Galway. Accepting fully your rightto Indeed her family was to exercise editorial control add greatly to the roll of and express your own opinions women graduates, for as editor, we nevertheless we between 1903 and 1906 her are appalled that for sisters Alice, Janet and instance, the concerns of the Margaret took degrees. E.V. in regard to Mutton Alice was the first woman Island have never been given graduate in engineering in adequate expression in your Ireland and took her B.E. in paper. Galway in 1906 with first Yours class honours. Michael Flaherty, Thomas P. O'Neill Chairman

A

Ribbons Not Allowed

(Name and address with
Editor)

Hijacked Peace?