‘Back to the Future’- Online Social Media, Video Conferencing & Cloud Computing in 1980s Galway

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'Computer Society' stand on Student Societies Day UCG (NUIG), Sept 1980
Technology innovation, communications and learning is so much part of the fabric of modern Galway. Children and their parents are together attending Saturday morning classes to learn how to code; people of all ages are daily accessing online services for hotel bookings, banking details and information services; teenagers are flirting online with their boyfriends and girlfriends in different schools during class time; robotics are taught in our third level colleges; our pre-teen and early youngsters are becoming renowned digital makers who are demonstrating their own programmable automated devices at the Young Scientist Exhibition in the RDS; a multi-national Mervue-based company employing over one hundred college graduates is developing a revolutionary new type of search engine; Galway’s high tech industry is creating thousands of jobs that is earning the city a worldwide  reputation for business and responsible for a large slice of Ireland’s export trade. Mobile phones and video conferencing communications are changing the way we socialise and do business.
 
Whilst these details could define Galway city in 2018, there are in fact stories of Galway as it was during the 1980s! 
Test of PDP-11 computers in Ballybrit Galway, 1975
Find out more about the city’s proud digital heritage at a fascinating talk by Brendan Smith, curator of the Computer and Communications Museum of Ireland based at the Insight Centre for Data Analytics at NUI Galway, that will take place at 2.30pm on Saturday February 24th in the Galway City Museum.
Colin Laferty at the 'Computer Society' stand, Student Societies Day UCG (NUIG), Sept 1980


Online Learning in 1940s Ireland!


Whilst most of Europe was experiencing the horrors and carnage of World War Two, Radio Éireann, the Irish state radio broadcasting service, launched a series of bi-weekly lessons to help people across the country to learn the Irish language.

The innovative creators of this eLearning teaching initiative realised that learning a language was primarily about unconsciously assimilating sounds. Pronunciation and fluency comes from the spoken word.
It is lovely to know that eLearning has a strong tradition in Ireland that predates the Internet and television by decades,
The 'Listen and Learn' booklet that accompanied the broadcasting lessons was recently purchased as a very welcome addition to the memorabilia of the Computer & Communications Museum of Ireland.

Could Galway become Ireland's first Urban National Park?

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A call for the political, community, environmental, business and sports sectors to work together in transforming Galway into Ireland’s first National Park City has been made by a local science, environmental and community advocate. Brendan Smith, Galway’s current Volunteer of the Year, has said that the city should follow the recent example of London where Mayor Sadiq Khan has put his full support behind ambitious plans for London to become the world’s first urban national park.

“Such a status would not in any devalue the traditional designation of a National Park which is about protecting wildlife in natural environments located in rural countryside or marine areas. It would be a new type of park designation in which people and biodiversity could live in mutual benefit. Galwegians could become world pioneers in helping to create something this is so urgently needed as we are becoming an increasingly urbanized planet with over half of the global population now living in cities and where scientific research is clearly showing that our disconnect with Nature is impacting negatively on our wellbeing as well on the health of the planet.  Many of the serious challenges facing Galway as with many other cities such as obesity, mental health, low community cohesion, poor air quality, pollution, high waste levels, illegal dumping, car-based traffic gridlock, urban sprawl, sterile green spaces, flooding, biodiversity loss and the negative impact of climate change could be overcome by becoming an Urban National Park.


“A ‘Green’ identity for Galway would complement our Arts and Science-Technology characteristics.  The city already has enormous advantages due to its physical and human geography. It is located at the juncture of the Atlantic Ocean, the world famous natural landscapes of Connemara and the Lough Corrib/Mask waterways that reach deep into the hinterland of rural Mayo. It will become the terminus for the proposed Dublin-to-Galway cycleway and the starting point for the Connemara Greenway which is garnering enthusiastic support in the west of the county.  With twenty per cent plus of its landmass classified as green space that comprises wide range of natural wildlife habitats including coastline, woodlands, bogs, hedgerows, farmland, karst limestone outcrops, wetlands, lakes, rivers and canals. There is also still in existence a plethora of almost forgotten rural laneways or botharíns on the outer perimeters of the city, a remnant of its rural heritage that could easily become a network of walking and cycling trails. Just as importantly the city has a proud tradition over the last few decades of community environmental activism that has led to major successes that have helped protect biodiversity and enhance the quality of life of its citizens. 
 During the early part of the last decade, Galway was at the forefront of urban ecology initiatives in Ireland due to an active collaboration based on mutual trust between a diverse range of stakeholders that included Galway City Council, third level colleges, ecologists and local communities. This partnership led to the city in 2000 creating Ireland’s largest urban forest park in the Terryland-Castlegar district that with over with 90,000 native Irish trees has become a major natural ‘carbon sink’, the rolling out of the country’s first three bin pro-recycling domestic waste system in 2001 and in introducing the first municipal cash-for-cans scheme a few years later. 



Other eco-initiatives soon followed including a mapping of the city’s diverse habitats, a growing neighbourhood organic garden movement and the mapping of a 25km looped heritage cycle trail along its rural perimeter. Over the last few years eco-initiatives such as Outdoor Classrooms for schools, development of wildflower bee-friendly meadows, restoration of traditional drystone walls and the creation of a series of roosts for bat colonies have occurred due to the energetic work of volunteers. We can continue to harness the enthusiasm and power of local communities, schools, retired associations and youth groups through novel schemes such as a volunteer park rangers and nature trail guides to make the vision of an Urban National Park a reality. But we need to do more if we are to create a sustainable green city of the future. We must become a laboratory for new smart sensor technologies and transform our planning policies in order to integrate renewable energies, a safe walking/cycling/public transport infrastructure, rainwater harvesting, green roofs, neighbourhood farming and urban villages of cohesive communities into our city’s fabric.
Following the example of London, taking advantage of our Green Leaf designation and realising our city must do something radical to protect biodiversity, absorb population growth and secure a quality of life for its citizenry in a time of climate change that could be devastating to the planet, the drive to create a Urban National Park could be our salvation.  
 “At a Green Leaf themed meeting last week attended by city officials, environmentalists and community activists, the idea was very well received. There is a need now for all stakeholders to come together to plan out the principles for such a designation and put together a multi-sectoral team with a unity of purpose to start implementing the process."