Latest news with #Pottle
Irish Times
22-05-2025
- Sport
- Irish Times
A tough duel but Cavan find a different way to slay that badger
On the week that Cavan last beat Mayo in the championship, a man from Gowna fought a badger. I'm serious – it even made the Anglo-Celt newspaper. 'Mr John Cullen, Pottle, Gowna, had a rather exciting experience with a badger, which he attacked with a hayfork, the animal retaliating viciously,' the report read. 'After a hard fight for over half an hour, Mr Cullen, fearing the worst, called on his son to bring him a gun, with which he shot the badger. 'Mr Cullen says it was the toughest duel he ever had.' The newspaper was dated September 25th, 1948. Cavan beat Mayo in the All-Ireland final on September 26th – and not again until last Sunday, May 18th, 2025 . READ MORE Now, Cullen v the Badger (what would Don King have called this? Death in the Sett? Full Throttle in Pottle?) prompts some questions, the obvious one being why the bold Cullen waited so long to change his tactical approach. The badger, perhaps working behind the jab, cutting off the ring, clearly had the upper hand – but why did his, presumably, two-legged foe leave it until he was 'fearing the worst' before doing what he surely should have done in the first place? I like to think that coming from Gowna, maybe he was a football man, which would make sense because, down through all the years and all the cursed days, Cavan teams have never made things easy on themselves, either. A few weeks back in Omagh, for the umpteenth time, they reached a crossroads, saw the sign for Gung Ho and took the other road . Let's be honest, it was hard to see the way back and the supporters reacted accordingly; a vanishingly small crowd made the trip to MacHale Park. 'That cliche about travelling in hope rather than expectation would have been true had they travelled at all,' wrote Conor McKeon, damningly, in Monday's Irish Independent. 'The Cavan players loitered in the middle of the pitch and drank in the sun with the few family and supporters who had made it. It looked more like a weekend neighbourhood summer soirée than a raucous celebration for a landmark championship win.' [ Ponderous Mayo find out how dangerous it is to overthink their gameplan in the new-rules era Opens in new window ] 'Landmark' was an apt word though, because wherever this team's journey takes them, this game will be referenced − the day Cavan took a championship scalp really worth taking. Should Cavan go on to do something special, Castlebar will be the day it started. Should they not, Castlebar will be the day it ended. Either way, it's a day that will be referenced for years to come. Yes, Mayo were poor but that's by the by. This was a win against a recognised top team, a win Ray Galligan admitted last week his team were desperately seeking to 'change the landscape of how they're viewed'. They did that; they earned respect. There was a moment towards the end of the match which summed up Cavan's approach, when Mayo's dashing forward, Ryan O'Donoghue, was clattered by a bone-shaking, fair challenge from Killian 'The Gunner' Brady. Reeling, the brilliant Belmullet man, who had been haunted by Niall Carolan all day, offloaded the ball instantly but his thoughts were clearly scrambled. The team-mate O'Donoghue thought was there, was not; maybe, it was an apparition of sorts, induced by a heavy hit. The unfortunate O'Donoghue's handpass went straight to a Cavan man and they raced up the field and scored. It was unusual to see a pass go so wildly astray at that level of football but then, everything about this match was; it just felt like that kind of day, a day when ghosts were banished. (Centrefield in 1948, incidentally, was a forebear of Brady's, Phil 'The Gunner', cut, they say, from the same cloth.) Paddy Durcan of Mayo and Cavan's Dara McVeety get to grips with each other during Sunday's match at MacHale Park. Photograph: James Lawlor/Inpho Seventy-seven years is a long time. The people were different back then, closer to the land maybe (a man might, I don't know, find himself fighting a badger of an evening, for example). 'A kite flying high over the pitch was decked out with the Mayo colours while a rabbit in the same garb was released shortly before the start,' the report on these pages of the 1948 final recorded matter-of-factly, as if this wasn't the daftest carry-on imaginable. 'After nibbling at the grass, it seemed stage struck and was picked up by a steward. Then out dashed a hare dressed in blue for Cavan. It ran round briskly whilst the crowd cheered. It, too, was picked up and the parade started.' A crowd of 75,000 attended that game, with a reported 25,000 unable to gain admittance. 'The crowd were so dense – a swaying mass of humanity – that the situation was positively dangerous for old or delicate individuals. Many people fainted...' the report reckoned. In the Market Square on the Tuesday after the final, Cavan chairman Patsy Lynch spoke to the masses. 'In the victory celebrations tonight, we should not let the opportunity pass without mentioning our traditional friends, the Gaels of Mayo,' he proclaimed. 'At any time that a Cavan team appeared in Mayo, they were accorded a great reception and they counted them among their greatest friends.' And it's true, there is an affinity between the counties, more so than others a similar distance away. Why that is, I don't know. Maybe the common kinship is built on a latent recognition that well, if you're in this, get out of it while you can or otherwise, it's going to hurt. It's when you least expect it, though, that both teams can surprise you. Witness Mayo scoring own goals and missing penalties in All-Ireland finals, beating the greatest team of all time and losing next day out; remember Cavan winning the Ulster Championship a month after being relegated to Division 3 – and then going to Division 4 before the ribbons had been cut from the cup. All of this is in the last five years alone. So, I headed west torn between dangerously unfounded optimism in the heart and a faint sense of dread in the head. I gave a lift to two young women of my acquaintance and on the drive, football wasn't mentioned, not once – and having covered this same fixture last year and the recent one in Healy Park, I must say I was quite happy about that state of affairs. [ Conor McManus: The West's a wake but it's resurrection time for Dublin Opens in new window ] We reached Castlebar and my passengers disembarked, laden with camping gear, heading further west still to Achill. I considered joining them and rued that I couldn't. To the stadium, a couple of familiar faces outside but not many. 'Big ask, now,' muttered one Cavanman who knows his football better than most, better than me, anyway. Into the lift, up to the press box. 'Any chance?' asked one wizened scribe. 'I wouldn't back us,' I admitted, secretly still hoping we would give it a good rattle but too cowardly to say it aloud in front of the grown-ups. And early on, yes, it was clear there was something different about Cavan – they were up for this one. But bodies started to fall and men looked leggy and when Mayo went in at half-time three points up, without having done anything really of note, you knew, just knew, it was going to be one of those days. And then, like the man from Pottle, God rest him, Cavan said, to hell with this messing around, sent for the shotgun and blasted all before them. A 'rather exciting experience', indeed. On the way home, I stopped in O'Connor's of Tulsk, a shop and pub along the roadside. The sun was setting but there was still a warmth in the air. My phone hadn't stopped ringing and I found myself giddy. Across the shop counter, the bar was hopping; I heard a man say 'some win for Cavan' and for the second time in a few hours, I thought of abandoning all plans and joining in. But I had reports to write, more's the pity, of discarded pitchforks and slain badgers and famous wins and generations of the same family, 77 years apart, in the same colours, fighting the same fight. That's the beauty of it and that's why, despite it all, we love it. On I went. Paul Fitzpatrick is the sports editor of the Anglo-Celt newspaper, where this column originally appeared as the weekly Cavanman's Diary
Los Angeles Times
22-04-2025
- Los Angeles Times
Nunangat, meaning homeland: Barry Pottle on finding truth and beauty through photography
In urban Inuit photographer Barry Pottle's visit to the Rideau Canal, it's the time of the year when the body of water freezes, creating intricate patterns and colors. As the first layer of ice forms, tiny crystals begin to thicken. Under the blue surface, ice expands and susurrates, sounding like a spaceship. Courtesy Barry Pottle: 'Rideau Canal' Historically, the British military built this 202 -kilometer waterway during the War of 1812 to defend against the U.S. Located in Ottawa, Canada, the Rideau Canal becomes the world's largest skating rink during the Winterlude festival. As a UNESCO World Heritage Site , thousands of tourists and locals gather behind kiosks selling Beaver Tails or maple taffy, skate by carriages and seahorses carved in ice, and play in Snowflake Kingdom . During dusk, the sculpture lights reflect onto city buildings and glass windows: a dragon illuminates green and a bison shines red. Ottawa glissades into a rainbow. Recently, rising global temperatures have shortened the skating season in the Rideau Canal. In 2024, the canal was open for skating for only ten days. In 2023, it remained closed all year due to warm weather. Barry Pottle seeks to raise environmental and cultural awareness through his photographs. Originally from the Labrador province of Canada, Pottle now lives in Ottawa. Pottle comes from the Rigolet Inuit community and moved to Happy Valley-Goose Bay in his youth—he is one of the 30% of the Inuit population that have migrated South to major Canadian cities, such as Ottawa. Growing up, Pottle dabbled in all sorts of art: drawing, sketching, writing, and carving. 'I view the world through an interdisciplinary approach, and I don't like to be pigeonholed into things,' he said. 'I like to explore different avenues of art.' As a self-taught artist, Pottle discovered photography by accident. In early 2007 or 2008, Zellers —a department store in Canada—was closing in the area. With two million reward points remaining, Pottle bought a 35mm film camera. Pottle's passion for photography grew as he worked as a curator for the federal government, researching Inuit art. While exploring the intersection of arts and culture, Pottle realized that photography was not a prominent medium in Inuit art. 'Peter Pitseolak was one of the firsts to start looking at the medium of photography and taking pictures of his community. Then there's Jimmy Manning. He was very instrumental in inspiring me to do photography,' Pottle said. 'So when I started out, I wanted to help build the foundation for photography within Inuit art.' Pottle's first artistic photography project explores how governmental policies and programs shape the Inuit community: 'The Eskimo Identification Program was developed by the federal government in the 1940s, and it ran up until the 70s, in Nunavut, in the eastern Arctic, and then it finished in the 80s in Nunavik,' Pottle said. The Eskimo Identification Program involved the federal government issuing a unique identification tag to Inuit composed of a letter indicating if they lived in the Eastern or Western region, a number indicating the administration area they lived in, and three or four digits that resembled a personal ID. Historian Season Osborne wrote that the government implemented this identification system to track the hunting, medical services, education, housing, finances, and food of Inuit families. Made into a coin-shaped disc using red leather and fiber, the front of the identification tag features the coat of arms of Canada, a symbol of royal authority. On the back, the disc features the identification tag of an individual, including their name spelled in English and Inuit syllabics. Courtesy Barry Pottle: 'Awareness Series' Reporter MacDonald Dupuis explained how the Canadian government dehumanized Inuit individuals into a string of numbers and letters as they wore the tags on their necks at all times. In schools, some children used their disk number to address themself rather than their names. Inuit today still find their Eskimo numbers in their mail, jewelry boxes, and even hidden in their favorite numbers they picked out as kids. Representing the historical erasure of Inuit identity, Pottle's photography uplifts Inuit to reclaim and realize their individuality. By photographing around ten images of Eskimo identification tags, Pottle recognized the power of juxtaposing the tags with individual self-portraits. He named this photography collection the ' Awareness Series ,' and approached the project through societal and linguistic lenses. Captivating artists, scholars, and the general public, the 'Awareness Series' went on display as a permanent art collection in the Art Gallery of Hamilton. Dr. Heather Igloliorte, a professor of art history, also invited Pottle to contribute to the 'Decolonize Me / Decolonisez-moi' project, a book featuring Aboriginal artists and essays that explore the brutal legacy of colonialism in Canada. Another one of Pottle's photography collections highlights the practice of preparing Inuit food and meals. Foraging for cloudberries, harvesting Arctic char, skinning muktuk — these steps are all sacred in preparing country food. Pottle developed 15 images of how Inuit families would prepare a meal in the photography collection 'Foodland Security.' 'My diet consists of caribou, seal, partridge, fish, small game, berries, and birds,' Pottle said. 'Foodland Security' demonstrates the value of preserving Inuit country food in an era where authentic recipes are becoming less accessible for urban Inuits. Ice loss disrupts practices such as ice fishing, hunting, and sledding, which are vital for transportation and gathering food. 'Inuit culture is very close to the land, water, and sea animals,' Pottle said. 'From the materials we use to make clothing, tools, and homes, I think there's a special and spiritual connection to nature. In the photograph ' Cutting Tuktu (Caribou),' Pottle captures an individual using an ulu, a versatile tool that was used as a knife. Representing Inuit women's identity, the ulu has been used for generations to cut hair, trim snow blocks, and make clothes. Courtesy Barry Pottle: 'Starting the Feast' The impact of Pottle's photography lies in its ability to evoke a deep appreciation and personal connection to his homeland. Through observation, curiosity, and gratitude, Pottle interacts heavily with Inuit voices in his photography, inviting an atmosphere of openness and energy. 'Whether it's food, a cultural activity, such as throat singing or games, or hunting,' he said, 'I create art through the practices and iconography within Inuit culture.' Carrying his camera everywhere he goes, Pottle finds artistic meaning in the natural phenomena and environmental wonders closest to the Earth. During Sunday afternoon drives or trips to the Saint Lawrence River, he captures ice crystallizing and air bubbles compressing through the layers, whorls, loops, and traces of ice lines —all upon a palette of rich, dark blues. He titles the photograph 'Rockport Ice.' Courtesy Barry Pottle: 'Rockport Ice' 'My motto is, practice, practice, practice. I'm not a professional artist; I'm all self taught,' Pottle said. 'I learned on my own through practice, through getting an eye and exploring various subjects and topics here in town.' Cultivating a future of sustainability and cultural preservation, Pottle's work builds a foundation for Inuit perspectives to grow and cherish their own experiences and memories. 'I see a huge positive for Inuit art in Canada — videographers, filmmakers, storytellers, visual artists, dancers, the whole genre. The community here is very active, very vibrant: Montréal, Toronto, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary, Yellowknife, and St. John's,' he said. 'To me, my images are, I call them reality. They're real, real-life images, happening now in the moment.' As Inuit artist Kenojuak Ashevak said, 'There is no one Inuit word for art. We say it is to transfer something from the real to the unreal.' Related
