(posted 3/17/97)
Ireland, I once read, is the fifth largest software exporting country. I can't document this fact and it may be blarney but it is true that many computer companies have their European manufacturing facilities on the Emerald Isle. Ireland also has a significant presence in the development of web sites. NUA, an Irish Web Developer, won the overall award in the 1996 European WWW Awards. and Dublin's Irish Times has one of the more sophisticated newspaper sites on the Web. The Forbairt Internet Report has an article on "Ireland And The Digital Age".
But Ireland is more known as a country of Philosophers and Poets and one of my favorite Cyber Philosophers is Gerry McGovern who's weekly online newsletter New Times talks about Ireland and the New Technologies. In a great New Times column "Height of Cities" Gerry talks about how, as a youth in rural Ireland, sitting on a fence on Friday afternoons, he would watch workers returning from Dublin for a weekend at home. His point in the column is that now, with the telecommunication revolution, these commutes are no longer necessary.
These Poets and Philosophers use cameras also. One of the most popular pages on the Irish Times web site is a net camera view, refreshed every 30 seconds, overlooking historic O'Connell Bridge in downtown Dublin. On this bridge, seen by this camera, visitors from other countries have come with large signs of greeting to webites back home and real time police dramas have taken place in full view of the rest of the world.
Another favorite Irish photography related web site is a description of the work of Thomas Wynne, the first photographer in Castlebar, County Mayo. Check out this black and white photograph of the 19th Century town.
A great site of photographs of Ireland is the seemingly animated photo essay by U.S. News Photo Editor Marilyn O'Brien of rural scenes . This apparent animation is caused by using interlaced gif images and the refresh command in the meta line.
The Dublin Institute of Technology, Kevin's Street has a fine site showing the work if its students. My favorites of the graduate students are the landscapes of Emmet Hegarty and the portraits of Eithne Walsh.
A while back I was on an airplane with an Irish surgeon and his family who were traveling to a job interview in Sioux Falls, SD. He told me, bitterly, that what Ireland was best at was "exporting its people". Maybe with the new found success in emerging technologies and telecommunication Ireland can export more software and fewer people.
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Photography on the Web © 1997 Wm. Franklin McMahon |
