The annual Galway Science & Technology Festival Exhibition is tomorrow!

I'm just home from spending an enjoyable day helping the hardworking and visionary Galway Science & Technology Festival (GSTF) committee and dozens and dozens of volunteers get the University of Galway campus ready for tomorrow's Exhibition Day. With 20,000+ visitors, it represents the largest one day STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts & Maths) celebration in Ireland and opens a two week festival that this year has the theme of 'Regeneration'. Appropriately then the festival will finish on a high note on June 23rd with the planting of heritage orchards in fields within Terryland Forest Park comprising varieties of fruits that almost disappeared from the Irish landscape where it not for the great efforts of Irish Seed Savers Association.

As always, Sunday's interactive fair will involve all sectors from Galway city and county society including the corporate sector, indigenous companies, primary schools, secondary schools, science education centres such as Galway Atlantaquaria, university research institutes from both universities in Galway, art events such as drawing workshops hosted by artists Margaret Nolan and Richard Chapman, and the ever-present Origami stand workshops with Thomas Cuffe... The list goes on and on!

Galway is internationally renowned not just as a City of Arts but also as a City of Science. Now in its 27 year, the annual GSTF festival has played a key role in earning Galway this accolade.

2024 will represent my 23rd year as an active member of the organising team. Hopefully I will be around for a few more!

Photo shows my lovely wife Cepta with the Origami maestro Tom Cuffe at a previous GSTF Exhibition Day.

Today I enjoyed Dancing with a Lovely & Happy Partner on a Virtual Reality dance floor!

This morning/afternoon, my brilliant friend Luke Porwol (right of photo) gave a training session to his colleagues who have volunteered to mentor workshops on Virtual Reality (VR) to schools visiting our Insight Research Ireland Centre for Data Analytics at the University of Galway as part of theGalway Science and Technology Festival.

Whilst I have always been a strong advocate of learning through real life experiences especially within the natural world through the Outdoor Classroom and field studies, nevertheless I have for years passionately believed that Virtual Reality will provide a new, exciting, engaging and immersive dimension to young people in multiple subjects across the Irish educational curriculum. For instance if you are studying Ancient Egypt in History class, wouldn't it be wonderful if you could travel back in time as an avatar into a VR world and experience the pyramids of Giza when they were being constructed over 4,600 years ago; or if you are studying the Human Body in Biology class wouldn't it be so beneficial if you could move around the veins, arteries and heart of the Circulatory System; or in Geography Class be able to paddle a canoe along the Amazonian River in VR and see the causes and impact of deforestation.

As part of the training session today I danced with a lovely avatar who brought so many of the senses alive (sight, sound and touch!). When I finally had to leave the VR dance hall and return to the real world, my dance partner looked so sad that I actually got a bit emotional! For It was really nice to meet someone (or something!) that actually appreciates my dance moves

Making a Difference - SDG-themed Research at the Insight Centre for Data Analytics of the University of Galway.

 

I was very proud of my colleagues today at the Insight SFI Research Centre for Data Analytics, University of Galway as they presented their ground breaking research during the 'Data Science Institute Lightning Talks' event held as part of the university's SDG Week 2024. Their work is truly inspirational and benefits both people and the planet as we showed today how Insight research fulfills the majority of the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

Topics included 'Unlocking Health Data for Smarter Decisions' by heike vornhagen; 'Converting Wastewater into Energy' by Saeed Alsamhi; 'Decarbonisation and digitalisation of Atlantic Ports' Umair ul Hassan; 'Intelligent Pavement Condition Rating System for Cycle routes and Greenways​' by Ihsan Ullah; 'Peatland Policy Portal for Ecosystem Restoration and Carbon Sequestration' by Fergus O'Donoghue ; 'Marine Planner Tool' by Carlos Tighe; and 'Monitoring & Improving Air Quality' by Eoin Jordan.

We were honoured to have present at this very well-attended event Brid Seoige, Head of Content at the University of Galway, Eugene Farrell from the Discipline of Geography at the University of Galway and Irish representative on the European Marine Board (marine science policy) Working Group on ‘Coastal Resilience’, and Michelle O'Dowd, Sustainability Officer at the University of Galway.

The University of Galway is the number one university in Ireland and in the top 50 in the world for Sustainable Development.

Insight is playing its part in helping to secure this key status for Galway and Ireland.

Finally, well done to Brian Wall for his excellent job at MC, Thomas Grigas for the technical support, Claire Browne for the logistics and Nitesh Bharot for taking this fine photo! 

 

Do You Remember the great Volvo Ocean Race festival of 2012?

 

 

What a magnificent game changing event the Volvo Ocean Race Festival of 2012 was for Galway. The whole city and county came together like never before to make it a true all-stakeholders collaboration. Schools, colleges, small businesses, corporations, science educational centres, research institutes, artisans, horticulturalists, the council, the state sector, the voluntary groups, the environmentalists, the crafts people, the artisans, the digital makers, the arts- there was a place for everyone to contribute. The docks were transformed from being a quiet quarter largely unknown to most Galwegians, into a vibrant lively bustling hub. A tent city sprung up near the Claddagh seashore. I was lucky enough to be part of the team that included Liam Ferrie, Tom Frawley, Frank McCurry and my dearly departed and much missed friend Chris Coughlan that took over one of these large tents in order to introduce the Computer and Communications Museum of Ireland and Coderdojo Galway to the world!

 

My youngest son Daíre (see photo) was, along with so many of other children of Scoil San Phroinsias, involved in knitting a beautiful giant multi-coloured sail that covered the metal Claddagh Hooker boat sculpture at Eyre Square- It was one of the most memorable symbols of that year and of that festival.

Early Virtual Reality - the 1-Racer Nascar from 1999.

'Virtual Reality' is defined as an immersive environment that can be interacted with in a seemingly real or physical way by a person using electronic equipment such as a helmet with a built-in screen or gloves fitted with sensors.

One of the earliest and most realistic of Virtual Reality game environments came out in 1999. It was the 1-Racer Nascar from the American company Radica. Featuring a game modelled on a race from the Nascar (National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC) franchise it had a head-mounted display with integrated headphones, a handheld controller and a feedback mechanism.

To the modern user, its liquid-crystal display (LCD) technology may feel very primitive. But it worked, it was affordable and it was immersive.

Photo shows Jack Keaney using this pioneering headset.

Jack is a Transition Year (TY) student from Coláiste Iognáid who spent last week on a placement at the Insight Centre for Data Analytics University of Galway which included testing out both state-of-the-art and vintage AI and 3D immersive technologies. Thanks Jack for all your wonderful work!

2004-2023: My son Dáire's 19 year journey in Education.

 

In September 2004, a happy and excited four old boy started his first day in primary school (photo on left).

Dáire's eight years at Scoil San Phroinsias (Tirellan) was followed by six years at Coláiste Iognáid (the Jes), four years at the NUIG/University of Galway and finally one year at the University of Barcelona where he completed this summer an MSc in Medical Science.

All of these educational institutions served him well and he learned a lot from some fine motivational teachers and lecturers.

His life-long love of wildlife especially marine life, inspired by his fascination with and volunteering at Galway Atlantaquaria with its great staff and management (thanks Liam Twoney, Noirin, Neil, Pete, Colette & Kevin), meant I thought for a long time that he would pursue a career in marine biology or veterinary science.

But that was not to be and his journey in education will mean he will be helping in some form to save the lives of people rather than animals. 

So well done Dáire! In an era of destructive wars and a climate crisis, it is so important that our youth take the decision to help their fellow humans and the rest of nature, both professionally and as volunteers.

The photo on the left shows Dáire on his first day to school accompanied by his older brother Shane (who started secondary school in St. Mary's College on the same day!) and his mom Cepta (p.s. I was there too- I was the photographer!). The image on the right shows Dáire in his graduation robes with Cepta this summer in Barcelona, standing in front of the one of the great man-made wonders of the world, namely the Basílica de la Sagrada Família ('Holy Family').

It is appropriate that both photos show Dáire with his mom. For Cepta has been his (& indeed that of our other son Shane) rock throughout his life, always there to help and guide him from birth to adulthood. So I extend a big 'bualadh bos' to my lovely wife Cepta!

Hopefully too the designer of the awesome Sagrada Família, the renowned Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí, will also serve as a positive influence for Dáire into the future. For his passions were so benign and are now needed more than ever in today's troubled world, namely a deep love of Nature, a need to 'green' the built environment, a practitioner of innovation, a Christian humanitarian and a proponent of indigenous culture (in his case the language, art, and history of Catalonia).

Upstairs, Downstairs – the Inside Story of an Irish ‘Big House’

One of the most enjoyable nights that I have experienced for manys the long year took place recently when it seemed the whole community of Fohenagh and environs, complimented by heritage enthusiasts, politicians and dignitaries, came together to celebrate and to give due recognition to my good friend Frank Gavin for the launch of his excellent book entitled “The Dillons of Clonbrock, a History”.

The venue was Gullane’s Hotel in Ballinasloe and the large attendance and its makeup was a reflection of the high esteem and respect that Frank is held in across east Galway and beyond. Amongst the participants were Senator Aisling Dolan; Galway County Cathaoirleach Liam Carroll; Martin Mac Oirealla, a highly enthusiastic ‘heritage in schools’ educator; Joe Mannion, another local historian par excellence; and the 87 year old Michéal Keaney, owner of the historical Castle Ellen (birthplace of the mother of Edward Carson, the founder of Northern Ireland) and the finest engineer that Galway City Council ever has had.

Master of ceremonies for the event was the brilliant Christy Cunniffe, one of Ireland’s best known community archaeologists. Special guest speakers were Marie Mannion, the country’s hardest working and much admired local authority heritage officer; and Professor Terence Dooley the distinguished historical writer and Director of the Centre for the Study of Historic Irish Houses and Estates at the National University of Ireland Maynooth.

I myself was honoured to be asked by Frank to also be a guest speak at the launch, to write the foreword for the publication and to enhance and colourise an old black and white photo taken of Clonbrock House circa 1904 that formed the cover of the book.

I was especially and personally honoured as both sides of my family fought on the republican side during the Irish Civil War, whose forces were sadly responsible for the burning down of many of the gentry mansions across the country, seeing them as symbols of centuries of colonial oppression.

I have known and admired Frank since 2008 when we first collaborated in helping the children of Fohenagh National School, under the guidance of the much loved principal at the time, Anne Burke, to undertake research studies and field trips on the history of the Clonbrock estate. The extraordinary series of podcasts and videos made with the school and the local community during 2008 and 2009 will be relaunched on March 6th 2024 at a special event in the Galway Education Centre to commemorate the BEO online heritage archives project and the Fionn Primary School Science 2002-2005 initiative.

The best tribute that I can give Frank here on the importance of his work is to repeat the foreword that I wrote in the book:

“There have been multiple books written about the Anglo-Irish gentry and their great estates which dominated and shaped the Irish countryside for centuries. Many more will follow in the years ahead. But this book is different. For the author is able to give a personal perspective from within the walls of the demesne as he himself was part of this ‘Upstairs and Downstairs’ world in its twilight years.

Frank Gavin worked as a gardener in the Clonbrock estate when Ethel Louisa Dillon, daughter of the fourth Baron Clonbrock who was one of the largest landowners in Ireland, was still alive. She was a debutante in Victorian London society at a time when it was said that the sun never set on a British Empire that covered almost a quarter of the world’s landmass. Frank provides some fascinating information on the Clonbrock estate during its heyday in the 19th century when the third and fourth barons, along with the latter’s extraordinary wife Lady Augusta Caroline Dillon, were exceptional in this era for being highly progressive pioneering residential Anglo-Irish landlords who practiced mixed farming; planted woods; constructed heated glasshouses (growing exotic fruits such as grapes and peaches), a forge, a sawmill, a butchery, a photographic house and a sophisticated piped water system for the estate; set up a poultry co-operative and established four schools in the locality for the children of their tenant farmers.

But Frank is at his best when he provides the names, photographs and the stories of the people who worked alongside him in Clonbrock and whose families had often done so for many generations before. He moves the spotlight along from the imperial landed class towards the farmhands and house servants that were the essence of these estates and whose descendants still live locally.

This is local history at its most authentic, when it is done by someone who has lived and experienced the subject matter at first hand.”

Internet Safety mentoring: From Bebo to TikTok.

In these early months of the current school year I have already provided, as part of my work at the Insight SFI Research Centre for Data Analytics of the University of Galway, Internet Safety sessions to parents, teachers and the young people of both primary and secondary schools in counties Galway, Clare and Dublin.

I have been undertaking Cyberbullying Awareness presentations since 2005 and was probably one of the first people in Ireland to do so.
(photo is of a leaflet from 2008 prepared by the primary school in Newport co. Mayo for a talk to parents on my birthday! The content reflects the era).

Since my student college days, I have been a strong advocate of the benefits that digital technologies can bring to people from all walks of life, having spent much of my working life teaching coding and upskilling people in the use of digital technologies. I started doing so in late 1981 soon after leaving university thanks to great inspirational visionary people such as Dr Jimmy Browne.

Immersing myself in web technologies really took off for me in mid 2004 when I became employed as the Outreach Officer of the Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI) at what was then NUI Galway. It was when the World Wide Web was for the first time becoming populated with user-generated content. It was exciting to be part of this!

In the early 2000s ‘blogging’ (personal websites) was the new craze; ‘online social media’ in the form of Bebo(2005), MySpace(2003) and Orkut(2004) was starting to appear for the first time; YouTube had just been invented (April 2005); online messaging and video telephony in the form of Skype (2003-4) was capturing people’s imagination; broadband was only being rolled out nationwide; the big bulky desktop computer was the main technology device in business, school and at home; and the smart touch phone in the form of the iPhone had yet to be invented(2007). ‘Email’ was king with many people of all ages acquiring their very first email addresses around this time.

Yet as a parent of both pre-teen and young teenage boys, I could see the dangers that computer gaming and web-based social interaction sites could and were bringing into our young people’s lives. Violence-based gaming, online aggressive pornography, misogyny, racism, cyberbullying, online stalking, and subsequent addiction and mental health issues for many users were a feature of the web even in those early days. People of all ages were suffering and yet there were few rules or guidelines available and nobody was talking about these new but growing problems.

So as a concerned parent and as someone working in a university web scientific institute (DERI), I decided, after securing the very supportive permission of my manager/directors, to put together my own content for delivering pioneering Internet Safety sessions to schools, universities, communities (neighbourhoods, asylum seekers, disability groups). But I always included in these talks (and still do) the benefits of new web technologies, giving a series of examples of exciting new developments especially those invented by young people, the need for stronger government legislation to protect those online including in punishing the very wealthy service providers, and highlighting the importance of good old fashioned benign parenting with the proviso that they make the effort to become aware and knowledgeable of their children’s activities on the web.

Eighteen years later, I am still providing such talks and workshops across Ireland. But sadly I have lost one important resource along the way. Over the years after having ‘the big chat’ with my sons when they were in their pre-teens or early teens and keeping lines of communications open, I learnt more from them that they ever did from me on the strengths, weaknesses, stories, pitfalls and issues associated with the latest social media and gaming sites popular for young people. I used the knowledge gained from them to make my own Internet Safety sessions more powerful, more meaningful, more current. Now that my sons are in their 20s and 30s I no longer have that family resource to call upon. 

So I have to make extra effort to see the Web through the eyes of a child. For in the world of technology, change is constant and one has to keep one’s finger on what is popular today as it becomes history tomorrow.

The 'Fighting Irish' put down roots in an Irish forest.

 

Thanks to the great efforts of community, educationalist and social activist Nell Buckley, the American Notre Dame University has this month become part of the story of Terryland Forest Park. This renowned university from Indiana USA operates a Global Centre at Kylemore Abbey in Connemara for its American students who can attend courses at the University of Galway. As part of a Sustainability programme, Nell has connected the Notre Dame students with the Tuatha of Terryland Forest Park to provide opportunities for environmental, Irish heritage and biodiversity activities. We are delighted to assist these endeavours and are working at putting in place a programme for the new academic year commencing in September. 

 

To start 'the ball rolling', the American students were brought on a guided tour of the forest park along its new human and nature heritage trails as part of the Galway National Park City 'Outdoor Classroom' initiative which included aspects of traveller and rural farming culture. After the tour the students took part in a litter pick. 

 

There are several accounts of how this American university got its nickname the 'Fighting Irish'. From its beginnings Notre Dame (Our Lady) had strong connections to Ireland. The founders of this university in 1842 were Irish and French priests. Its connections with Ireland increased dramatically in the subsequent years. One theory is that the nickname came from one of its presidents Father William Corby who served as Union Army chaplain to the legendary Irish Brigade during the American Civil War. A statute of him was erected in 1910 on the site of the Battle of Gettysburg (the first to honour a non-general) in recognition of his bravery. The moniker became mainstream as a result of a violent confrontation in 1924 between Notre Dame students and the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) a white supremacist and anti-Catholic movement. The university's role as a high-profile Catholic educational institution made it a target in a country where anti-Catholicism still ran deep. To intimidate the Catholic and Irish-American students, the Klan came in large numbers for a week long gathering to the city of South Bend that lay just south of the university campus. The students in their hundreds took on the Klansmen stopping many of them getting off trains and tearing up their banners and flags. Faced with the hostility of the students, after a few days the Klan called off their 'Klavern' and left the city. It led to the end of this racist movement's presence in Indiana.

Our Team Score Big at Croke Park!

 

As a child, I was once an unused substitute on our school’s junior Gaelic football team when we played at Croke Park. It was sadly a once-off and the opportunity to play a sport on its hallowed ground never came my way again. 

 

But this week, after waiting a lifetime, I did manage to ‘perform’ at our country’s most famous stadium.

I co-presented, along with the fantastic Deirdre McHugh at the Ahead Conference hosted at Croke Park, a talk on the Crowd4Access footpath mapping initiative run by the Insight Centre and the Access Centre which is about improving the accessibility for all users of the University of Galway campus. The theme of the conference was on ‘How Staff and Learner Communities Drive Inclusion in Tertiary Education', and particularly in supporting equity/inclusion of people with disabilities in further/higher education.

It was so inspiring and I learnt so much about the great work being undertaken by so many people across Ireland’s universities in developing programmes to integrate those with intellectual and physical disabilities into mainstream university education and then how those that participated as a result have contributed greatly to ensuring cultural and systemic change that benefited all.

Amongst these wonderful pioneers of change are the staff of the University of Galway’s Access Centre who attended the Ahead conference, namely its visionary director Imelda Byrne, Campus Accessibility Project Coordinator Deirdre McHugh, and Mature Student Officer Kathleen Hartigan. We were proud to be at Croke Park as a team of four!

Crowd4Access is a partnership between citizens and professional technology researchers to map the accessibility of footpaths of Irish cities initiated by my fellow Insight colleagues Bianca Pereira and Venkatesh Gurram Munirathnam.

Everyone has challenges when navigating the footpaths of a city, or a university campus. The wheelchair user and the parent pushing a buggy may need access ramps, the runner may need an even surface, the user of crutches may need shorter street crossings, the person with low eyesight may need a good contrast between footpath and the street, whereas the blind may need tactile pavement. Led by the Access Centre, University of Galway staff and student volunteers met for a series of online workshops (given by myself) and on-site mapping sessions to learn about how different people use footpaths in different ways and how to capture and share data on footpath accessibility. Our university community is the first to map a campus and one of a number of local communities nationwide that are through collaborative action mapping accessibility in their localities, and in making this information publicly available using free open-sourced software. 

 

Croke Park -once the Preserve of the Young Abled Bodied Male.

Whilst I was attending the conference, I was struck by the fact of how the ethos and culture of the Gaelic Football Association (GAA) and the wider Irish society has over the last few decades dramatically changed for the better.

The GAA has since its inception been a powerful force for good within Ireland and the wider Irish diaspora. It was a key part of the struggle against colonialism, of overcoming a sense of backwardness and inferiority promoted by imperial racist British values, and of helping to imbue the Irish people with a strong sense of pride in their rich heritage of language, mythology, music, poetry, and of course sport.

It also helped foster and nurture in local communities across Ireland devastated by famine, poverty and emigration a strong sense of place, togetherness and purpose.

However the GAA also promoted a conservative patriarchy where leadership was almost exclusively the preserve of men and where sport belonged to young able bodied males. There was no place for those that were physically disabled on the playing field, nor of those that were LGBT nor of the ‘foreigner’, most GAA sports were not open to women, and over time it became strongly associated with the Catholic Church. But that has fundamentally changed over the last few decades and today portraits of female players populate the halls of Croke Park which has become a venue for conferences such as the one I attended this week promoting inclusivity, diversity and equality.

Thank you GAA.

When We Were Young- the university campus of my Student Days

 In the 2022 Cois Coiribe Magazine out this week, there is an interview with me about life on the university campus during my student days. 

 

What an exciting time it was to be young! Ireland and the world were changing so fast and so many of us wanted to change it for the better.

We were the first in our families to go to third level college, to experience traveling across the European continent (by Interrail), to work summers in the USA (J1 visa programme), to get involved in international campaigns, to live in a city where young people were in the majority…

Lots of students of that era contributed so much good at so many levels to society- in the arts, sciences, business, education, politics, community…

Lots of great friends in the photo with Grainne McMorrow and myself leading a student ‘Education is a Right not a Privilege’ protest.

(p.s notice all the bikes!)

Hope you enjoy the read here.

Graduation Day- The End of an Era for our son, for his university and for his parents

Cepta and myself were very proud parents when we stood beside our youngest son Dáire a few days ago as he graduated from his university.

 

He was one of the final class of students to graduate from the National University of Ireland Galway (NUI Galway). From yesterday it will be known as the University of Galway/Ollscoil na Gaillimhe.

 

His graduation represents the end of an era for Dáire as he leaves Ireland in a few weeks to commence a postgraduate degree in bio medicine (human biology) in Barcelona. Like his older brother, he has been a gift from heaven to Cepta and myself over the last twenty two years. A cycling, field sports and travel enthusiast; a keep-fit advocate; a lover of aquatic life (thanks to Galway Atlantaquaria); a conscientious student; a kind person who surrounded himself at university by a group of very loyal good friends whom he has known from his early days in Coláiste Iognáid. We earnestly hope and pray that he will soon enter a new and exciting phase of his life by starting a long and successful career in hands-on bio science, a sector that will allow him to work with others to use new technologies to improve the health of people everywhere. 

 

It seems like only yesterday that Dáire was starting his first day in primary school (Scoil San Phroinsias). It was the same month that our oldest son Shane finished up in the same school to start his secondary education at St. Mary’s College. But it was 2004. How time flies!

 

For Cepta and myself his graduation brings to an end our involvement as parents in Irish education which began 26 years ago. 

 

So the day was one of great happiness but also tinged with a little sadness and a few tears.

 

I could not let the day pass though without taking a photo of Dáire sitting one last time in a Galway university lecture hall (and one in which I also sat as a student fadó fadó!); a photo of him using his student card to enter the campus library one final time and a photo of him joyously throwing into the air his graduation hat in the oldest part of our esteemed campus which dates back to the 1840s. Appropriately it was in the same decade that our university first opened as Queens Collage Galway that my maternal great grandfather Thomas Agnew became the only member of his family to survive the Irish Famine (An Gorta Mór). The rest of his brothers, sisters and parents it seems died from starvation and execution. He alone survived. As with many other Irish families, hunger, eviction and imprisonment at the hands of absentee landlords, the British judiciary and military is part of our history. But that is a tale for another day. Suffice to say that Dáire’s graduation is in my mind a thank you and a tribute to so many of our ancestors who experienced so much pain, death and destruction so that future generations of Irish men and women of all creeds and none could have a better life, one based on dignity, respect, justice and hope.

Finally I have to compliment Dáire for celebrating his graduation by taking part in a 80km charity cycle to the Electric Picnic.