Archive for the ‘Personal’ Category

Safe routes to school

Thursday, June 9th, 2022

Galway City Council are currently running a set of consultations regarding proposed developments under the 'Safe Routes to School' programme, for a number of schools in Galway city. The schools involved include those in Mervue, Renmore, Raleigh Row (Scoil Íognáid), Shantalla, and Westside (GETNS and St Joseph's). The Renmore proposals ...

Eulogy – Dr Anne Boyle

Thursday, February 7th, 2019

We had the memorial service for my mother today - she died Monday, and the Irish tradition is to have a short few days of funereal rituals prior to the burial. In Mom's case - always the non-conformist - she asked for a non-religious service and a cremation, so the ...

Celebrating women

Monday, March 20th, 2017

(While I'd originally intended to publish this on 8th March, for International Women's Day, various events intervened. Still, it's never a bad day to celebrate the work of women, as they bend the arc of history towards justice.) Several recent news stories have caused me to reflect on women in my ...

GRC summary

Tuesday, July 29th, 2008

I had planned to blog more from GRC, but my airport card stopped working on Friday, which was somewhat of an annoyance. I was pleased that my session on podcasting was reasonably successful - we didn't get into discussing much of the more arcane aspects of adopting podcasting for community ...

WRFU at the Farmers’ Market

Saturday, May 10th, 2008

WRFU had a stand at the Urbana Farmers' Market (video) today, and I was there from 10-12. It's really a nice atmosphere, and a good chance to meet with a range of people. It's still early - no corn that I saw (though of course there was kettle corn), more flowers than ...

Lunch and learn – Unofficial

Friday, February 22nd, 2008

It's getting close to that time of year. For the uninitiated, each year undergrads at the University of Illinois participate in an event titled Unofficial St Patrick's Day, or Unofficial for short. The slogan "Drink Until You're Irish" or - on this year's t-shirts - "Instant Irish: Just Add Alcohol." Last ...

Impressions from Vancouver

Friday, October 19th, 2007

I'm sitting in a room at Simon Fraser University, overlooking the Vancouver harbour. The rain, which had lifted over lunch, has returned, making the hills, of North Vancouver, on the far side appear ghostly, when they are visible at all. In a strange way, however, this rain seems so familiar, ...

Vancouver ahoy!

Monday, October 15th, 2007

I'm heading to Vancouver on Wednesday, to attend the annual conference of the AoIR. Hopefully I'll be able to take the time to catch up on my posting - as well, of course, as meeting with various colleagues and friends.

A silent genius, silenced

Monday, September 24th, 2007

I was sorry to see news, yesterday, of the passing of Marcel Marceau. I was privileged to see him perform while I lived in Dublin, probably around 2000 or 2001. He was in his 70s at that point, and though I was almost sitting with the gods in the upper ...

Always roses: a tribute to my grandfather

Monday, November 20th, 2006

My grandfather passed away in July, severing finally the [last few] tendrils that bound him to this human realm. In truth they were few enough at the end, those threads. When I went to see him - to visit with him, I should say - a few days earlier, he ...