‘Sputniks’, ‘Star Trek’ & ‘Open Government Data’- New Initiative to Promote Science & Engineering

As Outreach Officer at the renowned Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI) I am coordinating an eclectic mix of science fiction, video gaming, open data hacker workshops, computer programming courses, science lab tours and the establishment of Ireland’s only computer museum designed to spark interest amongst the Irish school-going population towards careers in science and engineering.

DERI is an internationally acclaimed centre of web science research, with researchers from over 30 countries working on the next generation of the world wide web known as the Semantic Web.

Introducing Computer Programming Courses to Irish Schools

As part of this month’s National Engineers’ Week which commences on February 14^th we are organising a fascinating array of activities designed to capture the imagination of youth and to show them the benefits and challenges that careers in science and technology represent.

A key component of the schedule will be the introduction of computer programming courses to pupils in primary and primary schools across Galway city and county tutored by DERI’s young researchers.

We feel that this initiative if developed further will prove invaluable not to just the pupils involved but to the county as a whole because, though programming forms the basis of much of modern science and engineering, the subject is not taught within either the primary or post primary curricula. We are already providing an after-school pilot course at St. Mary’s College Galway city which has worked out extremely well with students from both the junior and senior cycle attending the classes.

University Science Lab Tours

But programming is only one element in the institute’s attempts to inspire and motivate a whole generation to consider careers in science and technology.

One-day second-level school tours of five of the university’s top research institutes will take place during National Engineers Week.

Ireland’s only Computer and Communications Museum

There will also be guided visits of Ireland’s only Computer and Communications Museum which was established at the institute during 2010 in partnership with the multi-sectoral eGalway group. This unique facility provides a fascinating insight into the development of communications from ancient hieroglyphics to today’s Internet with a particular emphasis on the development of the microcomputer and the involvement of youth as well as Irish people in communications innovation.

Vintage Computer Games: Pacman Returns!

The museum will be the location for a range of events and exhibitions including a vintage computer gaming night known as ‘Pacman Returns’ on February 16^th; exhibits and lectures on topics such as ‘Hidden Histories: Women in Technology’; on ‘Space Exploration from Sputnik to the Space Shuttle’ and how the science fiction of the 1960s television series Star Trek influenced the development of many of today’s electronic devices such as the mobile phone and the iPad. Of special significance to Galwegians will be a special commemorative exhibit on February 18^th to celebrate the 40th year anniversary by Digital Equipment Corporation, then the world’s second largest computer manufacturer, to open its first overseas manufacturing plant in Galway city.

Hackathon: Open Data Hack Day’

In conjunction with the community-based 091 Labs, DERI will host Galway’s first ‘Open Data Hack Day’ on February 19^th to raise public awareness about the benefits of Open Government Data that will allow increased engagement and participation by citizens in the democratic process as well as provide new opportunities to develop meaningful public service applications. This inaugural ‘Hackathon’ should be of interest to all those concerned about improving political governance and accountability in the country including local government officials, public representatives, concerned voters, community activists and social web-developers.”

Stamps: Celebrating Space Technology & Exploration

On display in the museum will be a large collection of hundreds of stamps from the late 1950s onwards that celebrate the history of space technology. The exploration of space inspired many of humanity’s greatest inventions and feats of modern engineering. These triumphs include communications satellites, telemetry, earth observation monitoring, weather forecasting, rockets, space stations, harnessing solar energy, heat insulation, fuel cells and water purification systems.

The historical stamps from many different countries cover themes associated with the space programmes of the United States and the Soviet Union during the 1950s-1980s period

There will also be a selection of 1960s comic and toys associated with the classic era of science fiction.

Barack Obama & the 'Sputnik' moment

Governments across the world are endeavouring to develop sustainable smart economies in order to guarantee futures for their citizens in a world experiencing climate change, recessions, depletion of natural resources and unprecedented population growth. Developing countries such as China and India are now investing heavily in teaching science and mathematics in order to move their economies away from being just low-cost producers of consumer goods to becoming hubs of innovation. In the USA, President Obama’s recent State of the Union speech concentrated on how the American people need to face up to their “Sputnik moment” by emulating a previous generation who responded to the Soviet Union’s success in space exploration, typified by the launch of ‘Sputnik’ the world’s first satellite, by prioritising science education and research thereby spawning inventions that would provide the jobs and new clean technologies needed to positively transform society and the global environment.

Ireland & Galway Need to Utilise Natural & Human Resources To Secure a Sustainable Future

Ireland and particularly Galway possess critical traits and resources that could allow us to become an important dynamic player in providing key services and products in a fast changing world.

Our geographical location gifts us with an inexhaustible supply of renewable energies.

The country is second only to the famed ‘Silicon Valley’ as a global centre of Information Communication Technologies with seven of the top ten companies located here, many engaged in research and development. State funding through the Science Foundation of Ireland (SFI) has led to the establishment of internationally acclaimed third level centres of scientific excellence including biomedical and computing, many located in NUI Galway, which have acted as magnets in attracting in some of the best scientists on the planet. This combination of human and natural resources, and of indigenous and multi-national businesses gives Ireland the opportunity to invent the technologies of the future

The full programme of Engineers Week events at DERI can be viewed at www.engineersireland.ie

Arab Uprisings Reminiscent of Eastern Europe

Is history repeating itself? The wave of popular revolutions sweeping across the Arab world is reminiscent of events in Europe over twenty years ago. A series of mass street protests and strikes across Poland ended the fifty-four year authoritarian rule of the Communist Party when the regime was forced to hold democratic elections in 1989. Like a game of dominoes, the success of Polish ‘people power’ caused a knock-on effect of uprisings across all of the one-party Stalinist countries of eastern Europe. The seemingly indestructible edifice of militaristic Soviet puppet governments imploded within a matter of months.

Violence though was lessened by the ground-breaking decision of the Soviet Union under a reformist Mikhail Gorbachev government not to intervene in its satellite states as it had done so often in the past.

But the struggle for liberty and democracy knows no boundaries. Within a few years the USSR itself, then the world’s second superpower, disintegrated as its own peoples finally unshackled their chains of bondage.

In 2011 the majority of the Arab states, reeling from mass popular protests, are mainly one party regimes kept in power this time by the economic and military support of the USA, the world’s number one superpower.

Egypt for instance has long being the second largest (after Israel) recipient of American aid. Yet these funds, totalling c$2bn annually, are not used to improve the quality of life of the poverty stricken Egyptian people but primarily to buy arsenals of sophisticated weaponry from American arms manufacturers to keep a hated elite in power and to help Israel maintain its illegal siege of Gaza.

Thankfully it is Barack Obama in the White House and not George Bush leading to the hope that the Arabs will be able to eject their rulers from Yemen, Algeria, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. Of course the struggle for freedom and justice cannot be contained and inevitably it will be the turn of the Israeli colonists in the West Bank to face the wrath of both the enslaved and the exiled Palestinian peoples supported by the freed Arab populace of neighbouring countries. Peace in a war -ravaged Middle East will possibly then have a chance to blossom in a more fertile soil.

Green Party At Last Re-Discovers Some of Its Core Values as O Cuív attempts to Rekindle Social Principles of old Fianna Fáil

At last the Ireland's Green Party has finally re-discovered some of their fundamental principles and core values, by refusing last week to accept Taoiseach Brian Cowen's attempted 'stroke' of appointing new appointments after the mass ministerial resignations, & decided this week to resign from government.

So well done Gormley and co on this issue!

'Tis a pity though for the rest of us that they did not refuse the blanket bank bailout in 2008 nor vote against the loss of economic sovereignty in 2010 amongst other things.

Sad too that they never ensured, in their 3.5yrs in office, reform of local and national government reform of the civil service, reform of the financial sector, desperately needed curriculum reform and re-investment in education, support of local eco community campaigns such as the 'Stop the Headford Road through the Terryland Forest Park' in Galway City, protect the destruction of bogs across Ireland, introduce a levy on beverage bottles and cans, end party political influence in appointments to quangos & semi state/state agencies, the passage of a Climate Change bill, the abolition of corporate funding to politicians, protection of communities against cutbacks to their neighbourhoods and support groups, secure public ownership of Ireland's natural resources such as natural gas, end the Shannon stopover, protect the national heritage locality around Tara from motorway construction...

But still a positive though belated move.

Éamon O'Cuív- attempt at a return to core values of early Fianna Fáil

I am glad too that Eamon O'Cuiv has made a bid for the leadership of Fianna Fáil. Though he was part of the government that brought the country to near ruination, nevertheless I believe that he is not tainted by the 'me feinism' of the greedy self serving pro-property speculator mentality that is endemic amongst too many FF politicians. Though I disagree with many of his policies, I still think that he is an honest public servant that has a strong community and social inclusion ethos, a sense of justice and civic duty, a belief in the importance of national and cultural identity including a love of the Irish language.

'Men of No Property'

In other words, the values and beliefs that were part of the republican movement of the Easter Rising, the War of Independence and early Fianna Fáil. During these wars of liberation, many members of my family fought with the IRA, were prepared to give their lives to defend and give recognition to these principles. Ultimately they heeded the call of De Valera and followed him into Fianna Fáil. I am sure that they are now turning in their graves at how the party has gone from being the party of the downtrodden and men of no property to becoming the party of the absentee landlord and property speculators' who have the arrogance to call themselves up 'developers'.

Yet, 'tis a pity though that O Cuív became such a supporter of Cowen & did not stand up to & speak out against the other FFers who were too close to the financiers & property speculators

Call for Local Communities to Initiate Annual Green Calendar of Park Festivals, Picnics & Nature Tours in Galway City

A meeting of community groups organised by ‘Galway Friends of the Forest’ will take place at 7.30pm on Wednesday January 26th in the Menlo Park Hotel in a new initiative designed to encourage increased engagement by communities and schools with leisure parklands and wildlife habitats in their localities.

Green Calendar for Galway City

Members of resident associations, environmental groups and other community organisations are asked to attend to start the process of laying down the framework and events to fill up an annual ‘green’ calendar for Galway city that hopefully will benefit tourism, energise local communities involvement with their green spaces by tapping into local heritage knowledge and involve them (& schools) in protecting the wonderful but often threatened areas of natural physical beauty and biodiversity that exist within our urban boundaries.

Galway County's Golden Mile

In the process, consideration will be given to following the example of the neighbouring local authority who have pioneered the ‘Golden Mile’ programme across the villages and roadways of county Galway which successfully involves farmers and other locals in restoring the natural ecology and social heritage of the rural landscape. In so doing the scheme has helped engender a sense of collective pride amongst local inhabitants towards their historical inheritance.

City Hall officials and researchers from the School of Geography at NUI Galway and the School of Architecture University of Limerick will also be in attendance at next week’s meeting to outline some concepts that they have on increasing community engagement with green spaces such as the Terryland Forest Park.

A good presence is vital for this initiative as it represents a golden opportunity to unite with diverse communities across the city, tap into further NUIG expertise, reconnect with progressive elements in City Hall and come up with something innovative (Green Calendar) that can benefit all of the people (& tourists) of Galway.

Sunday Park Picnics, Heritage Cycle Tours, Nature Walks, Harvest Festivals....

It is envisaged that the proposed calendar could include a series of coordinated community tree plantings as well as nature walks along the seashores, rivers and/or woodlands in every locality during Springtime; Family Picnics in the city’s major parks, workshops on old traditional skills such as stonewalling and the ‘Off the Beaten Track’ heritage cycle tours that already take place in the rural landscapes of Menlo and Castlegar over the summer months; berry picking and bulb plantings by school children, arts fetes, ‘boreen’ and community garden harvest festivals in the autumn; local residents’ clean-ups of green spaces and hedgerow coppicing during the winter months.

As it is, there are already in existence a lot of excellent ‘green’ initiatives involving neighbourhoods and particularly schools happening across the city supported by a diverse range of agencies and institutions including Galway City Council, An Taisce, Galway Education centre, RAPID, Inland Fisheries Ireland, Birdwatch, Galway Civic Trust, Galway Bat Group, NUIG and Atlantaquaria.

There are also plans by City Hall to finally put in place a city-wide pedestrian and cycle ‘greenways’ infrastructure.

Time to Unite!

Hence it is a good time to coordinate the different eco-programmes under a shared calendar and exploit the potential of parks and woodlands to develop a network of outdoor classrooms for our schools and of outdoor scientific laboratories for our third level research institutes of such parks as is the case to a small degree with the multi-habitat Terryland Forest.

Destruction of Galway's Natural Heritage

But it has too be admitted that too much of our natural heritage areas are increasingly threatened by illegal dumping, encroachment by built development, pollution, and anti-social behaviour.

Hence many people feel threatened by our forests and parks.

Way Forward: Involving Local Communities

Encouraging local communities to hold events in green spaces and involving them in the management of these areas, as was the case years ago through the Terryland Forest Steering Committee and could be again through similar schemes and the introduction of a conservation volunteer movement, would engender a sense of local pride and decrease opportunities for anti-social activity such as bush drinking.

The local authority also has responsibilities under local, national and international legislation to preserve, protect and manage our natural habitats, hedgerows, the traditional drystone walls network, overcome habitat fragmentation by creating ecological corridors or green highways for wildlife.

Sadly in spite of the best efforts of many people within the parks and enviroment sections of City Hall, this is not happening to the extent that it should. Galway city is the least forested city in the least forested country in the European Union.

So we earnestly hope that interested parties would now come together to develop a new multi-sectoral partnership involving City Hall, residents associations, active retirement groups, organic garden committees, schools, third level institutions, community campaigners, environmentalists and state agencies that could produce a coordinated annual city-wide eco-programme for all ages that would make us the envy of the rest of Ireland.

Dying Embers of Middle Eastern Christianity

At a time when Christians across the world celebrate the birth of their founder, a dangerous cocktail mix of Christian, Islamic and Jewish fundamentalism is leading to the near extinction of native Christianity in its birthplace with a mass exodus of frightened Arab and other indigenous Christians fleeing rabid persecution.

At the beginning of the last century, Christians represented a quarter of the population of the Middle East. Their churches dotted the landscapes of what is now Turkey, Israel, Palestine, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. When Islam appeared in the region in the seventh century, Arab Christianity was already six hundred years old. Its worldwide influence was profound. They practised the custom of ‘prostration’ now almost exclusively associated with Muslims, and had always used (and still does) the term ‘Allah’ to refer to ‘God’. Egypt's Coptic Christians gave to the early Irish Celtic church its tradition of monasticism. Assyrian Christian scholars translated many of the Greco-Roman and Persian scientific texts into Arabic, thereby helping in the flowering of Islamic civilisation under the Abbasid Caliphate. From the eight until the eleventh century the Nestorians, with their heartland in modern Iraq and Iran were the most influential of all Christian churches with bishoprics stretching as car as southern Arabia and eastern China.

A religious tolerance more or less held in the Middle East for centuries until it began to be replaced about one hundred years ago by hatred and even genocide. This began in World War One when, according to many leading historians, the Ottoman Turks massacred three million Armenians, Assyrian and Pontiac Greeks in World War One because of their faith and ethnicity.

From 2001, the ‘Born-Again Christian’ George Bush unleashed wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that he termed a ‘crusade’ which has led to the death of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians. Combined with the pro-Zionist views of influential right-wing American Christians, who believe that all of Palestine must become Jewish in preparation for Christ’s return to Earth for the great final battle of ‘Armageddon’ (aka the ‘Rapture’), the response across the Middle East and environs has been the unleashing of a wave of murderous religious extremism. Too often local Christian communitities became an easy and accessible target. Christians now make up less than 6% of the region's population.

Yet as with Russia and China, US foreign policy is driven by an imperial greed that has nothing to do with freedom, democracy, liberty and justice. Its key global allies are bigoted religious authoritarian regimes such as Israel with its campaign of colonisation of Arab lands by foreign Jewish settlers; Saudi Arabia where Christian worship and that of other religions is banned, where school children are taught to hate ‘infidels’ or non-believers, and where conversion from Islam to any other religion (apostasy) is punishable by death; Iraq where a campaign of ethnic cleansing has led to possibly 500,000 Christians fleeing the country since 2004; and an Egypt where religious discrimination is practiced, where churches are bombed; where reports of the kidnapping, rape and forced marriages of young Christian Coptic women to Muslim men are increasing.

The great Irish writer and Protestant cleric Jonathan Swift was correct in his analysis that “We have enough religion to make us hate each other but not enough to make us love one another”.

So surely there is an obvious case for the expulsion of these and other countries from a United Nations with its ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights’ that includes Article 18 which states “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance”?

Sadly the EU and the Irish government will do little of substance to end religious and other types of persecution in countries where they have vested economic interests.

Twelve Days of Christmas in Galway 2010

Famous Irish Sayings & Quotations

'A Journey on into a New Year'

There is a lovely earthiness, warmth & sincerity about traditional Irish sayings & blessings.
So may I extend to those that I know & admire, one of my favourites as we continue our journey on into a New Year:

Go raibh an ghaoth go brách ag do chúl ...Go lonraí an ghrian go te ar d'aghaidh ...Go dtite an bháisteach go mín ar do pháirceanna Agus go mbuailimid le chéile arís, Go gcoinní Dia i mbos A láimhe thú.

May the road rise to meet you
May the wind be always at your back
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields
And until we meet again
May God hold you in the hollow of His hand.

ps. The attached photo is from the lovely island of 'Inis Meain'

Armagh Prison: following in the footsteps of my great grandmother

One of my abiding memories of 2010 was visiting Armagh prison on the last day that it was opened to the public before its closure and planned conversion into a five star hotel. I was one of thousands that visited this huge architecturally impressive prison complex one day in September.

Eviction & Imprisonment

Like me, many of the visitors seemed to have a family affinity with this dreaded institution. Some were obviously republicans who had served time there. In my case, this gaol was where my great grandmother Lizzie Agnew spent two and a half years as a young mother sentenced there in the 1880s by a colonial judge. Her crime - breaking and entering what was formerly her hovel of a home soon after she, her husband Thomas and their baby were evicted by armed police, soldiers and hired thugs acting under the instructions of a British absentee landlord and his gombeen Irish agent for failure to pay an exorbitant rent. Lizzie was one of hundreds of thousands from the Irish farm labourers and farmers classes kicked onto the side of the road during the notorious mass evictions of the 19^th century.

She had just given birth to her first child. Known as a strong-willed woman, she refused to accept that her new family should be evicted from her home by an unscrupulous landlord and broke back into the building. Having no money to emigrate, the alternative was starvation or life in the notorious local workhouse where family members were segregated into male and female dormitories, subsistence food only was provided and a harsh brutal regime existed. Soon after, she was arrested, brought to court in Carrickmacross County Monaghan and sentenced to imprisonment in Armagh.

Harsh Prison Regime

Armagh prison was commissioned by Richard Robinson, English-born Protestant Archbishop of Armagh, in the late 1770s on the site of an earlier military barracks. He was also responsible for many of the other fine Georgian buildings in the city, which has made Armagh today one of the most architecturally attractive urban locations in Ireland. The gaol was greatly extended in the 1840s and 1850s to accommodate up to 330 prisoners. During Lizzie’s time there, conditions were atrocious- severe overcrowding existed and diseases such as typhus were rampant. The daily food ration consisted of 7oz of meal in porridge and ½ pint of milk for breakfast and 12oz of bread and 1 pint of milk for dinner. Punishment cells and an execution shed existed in the complex where condemned prisoners were killed by hanging.

Main Prison Foyer

Capture & Jailed in Curragh

The prison accommodated both male and female prisoners, with women then being accommodated in ‘A Wing’. From 1920 during the Irish War of Independence, Armagh became a women’s only prison which it remained more or less until its closure in 1986. During the more recent ‘Troubles’ (1969- ), it held many well-known IRA prisoners including Mairead Farrell and the Price sisters (Dolores & Marion).

Lizze Agnew (nee Eccles) was not the only one of my ancestral family members who were imprisoned during the British period. My paternal grandfather Patrick Smith was an officer in the North Tipperary South Offaly IRA Brigade and was jailed in the Curragh jail after he was captured during a rebel attack on a British army unit. He was only released as a result of the Truce between the Irish republicans and the British government.

Prison Exercise Yard

Whilst there, I said a prayer to Lizzie while I was in the prison in recognition of her bravery and her suffering, and promised her that I would stay at least one night when it re-opened as a hotel. Not of any need to enjoy the trappings of luxury. But to show to her that her family had, like so many Irish, finally overcome poverty and foreign oppression. Yet I know deep down that she and my grandfather Patrick would not have been impressed that their struggles and hardships have led to an Ireland dominated by a native elite with no sense of morality, patriotism, community or a progressive ideology where greed, wealth and power are their defining traits, where control of our economic destiny lies abroad and where once again emigration has become a characteristic of our society.

But while there is life, there is hope! We all must do our bit in whatever way we can to make the world a better place for all its denizens.

NAMA is exposed as A Scam to Bail Out the Property Speculators at the Irish Taxpayers Expense

It made my blood boil to watch RTE's Prime Time investigative programme tonight & realise that the people who bankrupted this country & destroyed the hopes of our children, are still living the high life of big mansions, private helicopters, race horses & champagne. NAMA was exposed as a scam to ensure that the taxpayers bailed out the banks in order to save these property developers (I refuse to call them 'developers') from the consequences of their own greed. Worse, they were given the time to protect their most valuable assets by transferring ownership to their wives. As well as getting huge bailouts from us, we are also paying them huge annual salaries to look after our properties! Plus, we also pay them exorbitant annual rents for many of these properties. Believe it or not, they own the buildings that NAMA, the Revenue Commissioners, the Central Bank & many of the government departments & social welfare offices are housed in!!!!

Well done to Fianna Fáil for organising this scam to benefit their friends.
How stupid are we? How come the state doesn't refuse these failed property speculators the rents as they owe us so much? In fact, nationalise these buildings.

The 'Galway Race Tent' old boys network of bankers, property speculators & politicians is now exposed for what it was- an opportunity for the gombeen elite to milk the taxpayer for every cent possible.

Public pressure recently forced the government to do a U-turn and stop the 160Euro millions in bonuses that the AIB senior management had slyly set themselves up for.
We should end too the huge payoffs and pensions that the politicians now jumping ship by retiring before the next general election have organised for themselves. No pension should be given to any politician until they reach the retirement age as laid down by the law that governs the rest of us!!
Abolish too the big bonus payments to senior civil servants!
Shame not just on Fianna Fail but also on the Green Party. You have betrayed the people's trust!!!!!