I would consider myself notable in my absence, given I haven’t written a blog post of any description in quite a period of time. I’ll explain here why.

About a year ago, my wife and I made the decision to leave Ireland permanently. Our decision was based primarily on being closer to her family (that is to say, on mainland Europe) and with the knowledge that we were and are getting ever closer to starting our own family, which neither of us felt the urge to do in Ireland. Ireland, for all it’s positives, is an expensive country to do anything. Buying a house was (and still is) expensive. Having a child is expensive. Hell, going for a coffee is expensive. So we yearned for a certain quality of life that Ireland could no longer afford us. The decision was made, we discussed it with our parents between August and September last year (2010) and set in motion the steps that would be required to make the move. From the off, we had decided France was the place to go. We knew a number of people there, which gave us the advantage of having a base and a community with whom to start. We had met there, so there were nostalgic reasons. We spoke the language, always an advantage. And it was convenient enough for both families to come and visit us, or vice-versa. We settled on Quimper in Brittany as that was where we knew the most people and it gave us the best opportunity of hitting the ground running. I had the great advantage of discussing our decision with my employers, Arekibo, just after Christmas 2010, who offered to support our move with the ability to continue to work for them from abroad. This support was super and in the end, has actually proven invaluable. Without it, I don’t think we could have moved. The nature of my work has to change slightly, but that’s to be expected, given I won’t be in a position to meet clients, etc., from another country. I look forward to the challenge and others have done it before, so it’s just a matter of self-discipline.

And so, here we are. I’m on a train from Paris to Quimper, having arrived in from Shannon this morning. And we now live in France. I will take the opportunity of the 5 hour train journey to fill in some of the blanks over the past couple of months. It’s all been good, exciting and progressive!

Will I miss Ireland? Definitely. Will I miss my family? Of course. But the economy (which was not originally a deciding factor for us, but by the end was certainly a contributing factor) has encouraged us to believe we made the right decision. I had started to become entrenched in the Irish development scene, attending Pub Standards and Web Summits, speaking at Refresh, etc., so I’ll miss that. But Eamon Leonard pointed at one of the attendees of Pub Standards and explained that he had come to Ireland based on his contacts on Twitter and was working from having stepped off the plane, so I suppose it’s up to me to keep those lines of contact open! I’ll also be back to visit more often than you might think, so it’s not the end…

It’s really just the beginning.

So it’s general election time again. It’s been quite wearisome to see the country go through the ringer that it has had to over the past few years. I’ll admit, I bought into the whole Teflon Taoiseach era and was quite supportive of the regime when everything was on the up. But I couldn’t afford a house then and I can’t afford a house now (not that a bank in the country would give me a loan) so not much has changed in the overall scheme of things. Certainly, Bertie’s successor didn’t so much instill confidence, as slowly sap it further from our veins. I did my work experience in the Limerick Leader photography department in 1991, which is where I first encountered Brian Cowan, handing out awards to people who had completed Fás courses. The click of my camera caused a noticable disturbance in his address. I never took to the man at all. His continuing ineptitude in light of the financial crisis and (more damning I think) his lack of acceptance of responsibility for ANY decision making, or lack thereof, that got us into this mess, have been staggering.

This post though, is about changing this and changing the future. I have used a number of criteria to decide who I am going to vote for in the upcoming election. The first criteria is quite simple:

Are you Fianna Fáil, The Green Party, Sinn Fein or Independant?

Then forget it, I am not voting for you. The rest of the criteria are as follows:

• I work in the web development sector of the IT industry. Do you host your website in Ireland or use Irish web design companies for your website?
• Do you intend on introducing more taxes and charges (e.g. water) with no return to the populace?
• Do you intend on introducing third-level education fees?
• Two of my best friends are entering into a Civil Partnership, a ceremony I’ll be attending at the end of this year. Do you support same-sex marriage?

Based on these main criteria (of mine), you can count out Fine Gael and leave me with a half a point towards supporting Labour. My local Labour candidate is Ruairí Quinn, a man with some integrity (more than the current bunch) and a good reputation. So I suppose good ol’ Ruairí is getting my one and only vote. There will be no second choices, no transfers on my ballot card.

I truly hope that this period of going backwards in Ireland is over. I’m not like one of those daft American’s who expected Obama to come in and flick a switch to make it all better. I understand that it’s going to take time and I also understand that we may even need to go further back to finally start to go forward. But I refuse to support the current batch of crony’s who’s incestuous self support has let us as far down the rabbit-hole as we have come. I also refuse to support the hypocritical stance of the incumbents (one of Fine Gael’s 5 points in their plan is jobs, yet, as I have pointed out, not if you’re an Irish web design or hosting company).

You make your own choice and your own decisions. There is no perfect solution, but it is remiss not to vote. So all we can do is make the best choice we can, and hope that somewhere along the line, it contributes to a better future for us all.

I’m not sure how many boys started in my junior infants class of Knockea National Primary School in 1980, but I can say that five finished 6th class, with eight girls. Knockea was a mixed Catholic school in Co. Limerick, within the Cahernorry parish. My family discovered late in the day that our house was actually in the Ballybricken parish and my sisters and I should have gone there, but as it stood, we went to Knockea. Five boys finished and I remember them all. We responded to the roll-call every morning with “Anseo,” the Irish for “Here.”

Gerry Burke. Anseo.
Michael Meaney. Anseo.
Neil O’Riordan. Anseo.
Seamus Ryan. Anseo.
Tady Walsh. Anseo.

I know that I started with the five boys I finished with. Like all children, over the course of the eight years in primary school, we had our ups and downs together. I can’t say I was close to any of these guys and I lost contact with most of them when I left for secondary school.

Gerry Burke was a quiet, pleasant individual. Occasionaly, we swapped sandwiches (he always had ham and mustard). We played football on our lunch against the guys in the year ahead of us and when we were the year ahead, we played football against the guys in the year below. We went to cub scouts and then boy scouts together. He came to my birthday parties. I think I went to his. He had two younger sisters Barbara and Georgina, both lovely girls, bubbly and full of fun. The girls in our class looked after them when they started and years later, they looked after my sisters when they came to Knockea. It was a microcosm of the cycle of life. The boys played football, beat each other up, built things and the girls looked after the children, knitted and sewed. We made our communions together like mini marriages. I walked down the aisle with Maria Gleeson and I think Gerry walked down with her twin sister, Triona. Mini brothers-in-law. We made our confirmations together. We lived in each others ears from four years old to twelve.

As luck would have it, Gerry, Neil O’Riordan and I all ended up in the same secondary school, St. Clements, an all boys school on the South Circular Road in Limerick. This was a whole new world to us country boys. In a year of ninty-ish boys we were lost. Ninty-ish became three classes of thirty-ish (Alphonsus, Gerard and Plunkett). I was in Alphonsus and Gerry and Neil were in Gerard. The abbreviated A, G and P classes were distinct. No overlap of classes until after third year. We lost contact, became passing faces in the school yard. After our Intermediate Certificate, our first state exams held at the end of third year, we were offered choices as to the subjects we would take to the Leaving Certificate exams three years later. These exams would dictate where we could go to college, if we wished. My path and Gerry’s crossed again. We took physics together and pass (lower level) Irish. We spoke briefly and sporadically. We had little in common anymore.

After our final exams we all went our seperate ways. Some of us went to college, some went to jobs, others went away. Of the ninty-ish boys that I went to school with, I stayed in contact with one. I studied in Limerick, worked in bars part-time and in the following years, sometimes came across these boys of my youth, now young men. I ran into Gerry again, in the mid 90s. My family had moved to Corbally, just across the Clare border. I met and made friends with some of the local teens and with that, met a girl named Lorraine who’s boyfriend was Gerry (now known as Ger) Burke. We spent some time in the same company, went to nightclubs, hung out, got drunk, had a laugh. Lorraine and Gerry broke up shortly after. I lived abroad for a while, and when I came back, I moved to Dublin and I never lived in Limerick again. I never saw Gerry again either. My mother would ask me at irregular intervals over the coming years if I ever heard from Gerry or saw him, to which I always had to say no.

One night in July, I met an old Clement’s boy on a rugby pitch in Dublin. It was a chance meeting and a pleasant surprise. I asked him how he was and whether he was still in contact with anyone down home or from school. He asked me had I not heard about Gerry Burke.

Gerry’s body was recovered from a canal in Amsterdam on May 9th. My friend had no facts. I initially felt nothing, a slight pang of emptiness that this person I had known in my youth was now gone. The more I thought about it the more empty I felt. I told the one guy I had stayed in contact with from secondary school. In a twitter post later that night, he used a good word: poignant.

I searched online for more information. I found nothing. There are plenty of Gerry Burkes, but not the one I knew. I found an obituary notice on the website of the local Limerick paper. Died tragically in Amsterdam on May 9th. Buried in Co. Limerick on May 22nd. A single condolence on the notice echoed the numb emptiness I felt in his loss.

Working in the world of web design and development, I live in an online world. No information has ever been irretrievable. If there is a record, it is online and like many, I can find it.

There’s no Facebook page, no Bebo account for Gerry that I can find. There’s no news article about his death (a locally-known Limerick cyclist was found dead in Thailand on the same weekend and was written about extensively). Nothing on the TV or radio news websites. Nothing on the local or national papers. Nothing on the Dutch media or police website. No blog posts, no comments to blog posts, no existance of any description online.

I don’t know what happened to Gerry. I have only my memory of him as a child and then a young man. I don’t know anything about him. I do know that if I had passed him on the street with my wife, I would have introduced him to her as my old friend.

I feel he deserves more. More memory. More thought. He deserves to be more than a footnote in our lives. He deserves to be mentioned, to not be ignored. He deserves these thoughts I have of him of friendship and the sadness I feel at the news of his death.

Gerry Burke, died in Amsterdam. Gerry was a friend of mine and I am happy and proud to have known him. I wish him well on his journey and hope he is at peace. I know it will be his family who will remember him with the love and kindness that he deserves. And I hope that everyone who knew him will, at some point in their lives, remember him with fondness.

Gerry Burke. Anseo.

Tady Walsh
9th July 2010

I wrote this piece in July shortly after I heard the news. Once I had written it, I wanted to make contact with Gerry’s mother and father to ensure that I had their approval before publishing it. I’d like to thank Gerry’s family for their support and approval in my writing about Gerry.

My affiliation to the Munster Rugby Supporters Club has paid dividends. The tickets for Munster v Australia at Thomond Park on November 16th 2010 dropped through the letterbox at home today. WOOOOOOHOOOOO!!!

That is all.

[Update: November 17th 2010] Munster win, 15-6! A phenomenal match in horrendous conditions! Another notch on the goalpost for Munster!

Recent Twitter posts will have seen me rant about lost time and not having enough of it. I’d like to explain this a little further.

The whole world is busy. Everyone’s busy. There’s a goddamn global recession going on and we’re all trying to make a buck/euro/pound/yen/etc, but what about life!? What about our free time? What about takin’ a bleedin’ break? So with that in mind, here’s my future agenda. I have no idea when it’s going to happen, but if it’s in a list and it’s written down, it might happen:

• Visit Iceland
• Visit Berlin
• Visit Rome
• Visit Rome again for Italy v Ireland in the Six Nations 2011
• Start Project Icarus
• Finish Project Icarus
• Get the exhibition I have opening in Limerick a venue in Dublin
• Make more prints (in a print workshop)
• Take more photos
• Take more time off with my wife
• Learn the piano
• Learn Italian
• Finish learning Montenegrin
• Write more blogs
• Put more photos up
• Have more interesting things to say about HTML5 (and stuff)
• Get more involved in the (out of office hours) web scene

In fairness, the last couple there are in the works, which I’ll expand upon later. Otherwise, many of these are on the never, never and while I’d dearly hope to make them all happen, some are going to take longer than others.

Watch this space!

[Update: Add to the list above, finish styling this site so bullet lists appear correctly!! Sheesh!]

Unfortunately, we watched Robin Hood last night. Terrible. An awful decision. Two and a half hours of my life gone, never to return. At least we’ll never have to watch it again. But why? Why is it so bad.

There are a number of mitigating factors and I must stress, none of these are upheld by the main characters, both in front of and behind the camera. Ridley Scott has done his usual and Russel Crowe and Cate Blanchett (and others) have given their all in a film which is badly shot, very badly edited, has a horrendous musical score and an unimaginably slight story.

A word on the story. This could have been a lot more. It had plenty to deal with and by its very nature, the legend of Robin Hood is pure fantasy; chocolate-for-the-brain no matter how you absorb it. But the story in this movie is made all the more ridiculous by the fact that the screenwriters actually try to place it within a historical context… but then they change that context! History is re-written or attempted to and not in a good way. French troops never attempted a D-Day style landing, nor were they repelled by a “merry band of brothers.” It just didn’t happen. I’m all for switching off and swallowing whatever yarn you’d like to spin, but if you start trying to base it in a factual setting, I quickly lose interest.

The soundtrack is like something from a TV film. In fact, the whole film feels like an episode of a TV programme that’s been stretched from 30 minutes to 2.5 hours. It’s a long time and the flourishes and motifs used by the composer are so out of sync with the action and the intent of the scene’s, it’s actually impossible to take any thespian effort seriously. It’s pastiche and bad pastiche at that.

Finally, the editing, particularly in the battle scenes is truly terrible. There are moments where you expect Crowe to tie his shoelace before picking up his sword again. Coupled with the awful soundtrack, there is no rhythm or flow to the action.

Don’t be put off by the big names behind this movie. Ridley Scott, Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett et al. carry themselves, and carry themselves well. The northern accents are spot on and the chemistry between these characters is certainly there, though badly developed (at one point Robin Hood tells Lady Marion what he feels for her and all you can think is “he’s known her a wet WEEK”) and slow. Characters that are so important to what becomes the legend of Robin Hood are peripheral (Friar Tuck is a prime example). While the movie never claims to tell the story of Robin Hood, only how the legend began, one cannot help but feel that an opportunity to use these characters more has been missed.

All in all, while not the worst movie I’ve ever seen, it’s certainly way down the pecking order. I’m really glad we didn’t pay money to go see it in the cinema.

Hello.

So, I’ve been playing with re-doing this website over the past 2 years and finally got around to taking the finger out (hear that… POP!) and getting it up and running. It’s been a fun process. I really like the homepage and to put things into a time context, there was no CSS3 support for the ideas I had when I first designed it. Now there is, so I have implemented this site in HTML5 and CSS3 (where I can make it all as cross browser compatible as possible).

You’ll notice that after the homepage, the site is split into three distinct sections. There’s a good reason for this. There are a few things I do and do passionately. I considered long and hard how I might bring these worlds of interest together. I thought about three or more distinct websites. I thought about one all inclusive website. Nothing seemed to fit and this, in its own way, extended the day when the site would finally go live. I hit upon the idea of keeping all the sites based on the one theme, with a simple introductory page while doodling on the back of an envelope(like all good ideas). My name followed by my primary interests; it pretty much designed itself. I hope that I will be able to live up to the grand idea I had.

The three sites are in no order of importance as I found it next to impossible to allocate such. I also debated long and hard (not on my own) as to the order the links on the homepage should go and the order of the global navigation at the top of the screen. The only thing I could decide upon for certain was that one should mirror the other. Even the colour scheme has taken its time to finalise and I must admit, may yet change again. Feedback on these subjects will always be much appreciated.

Web development is my job and my interest. I can happily work on websites all day and all night (and have done in the past). This interest will be expressed and can be followed through the blog on web.tadywalsh.com. I have also redirected the domain of my company, square peg design to this site. This company still exists, but for the moment, as a private individual, it makes more sense to showcase my work within the confines of this site, rather than breaking away into something new. This will change in the future so watch this space!

Photography has been the one hobby I have kept up over the past 20 years and as a result is actually no longer a hobby. Neither is it a profession. I just enjoy doing it. I enjoy taking it seriously and I have had reward for this, not least with inclusion in the RHA Annual and with my first one-man exhibition of photographs in November 2010. The site photo.tadywalsh.com will cater to the needs of this work.

Finally, I have always been interested in blogging, being an active blogger on the Arekibo website (my employer) and previously the webBusters website (back before we called them blogs!), although I will admit, I don’t always know what I want to blog about!!! My many varied interests including music, movies, books and rugby (I am an avid Munster & Irish rugby fan and a Leinster Branch Referee) will appear within this blog, blog.tadywalsh.com.

Finally the site is still quite rough and requires a lot of tweaking here and there. Expect things to get better over the coming weeks.

Remember, you can always access each of the other sites from the global navigation at the top right of the website, or from the main homepage www.tadywalsh.com

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoy your stay.