First printed in the Sunday Independent on 1/11/2015 Sidepreneurs have all the hallmarks of more mainstream entrepreneurs – except they also have to keep going at their day job while doing it, writes Jillian Godsil They say the best business is grown in a recession – where labour, rents and expectations are cheap, but equally venture capital, support and credit is short. To straddle that gap comes the new sidepreneur – someone who has the idea and drive to create their own business, but is not quite ready to quit the day job yet. Eoin Costello, CEO of Start-up Ireland, has a burning passion to turn the island of Ireland into a start-up hub – attracting entrepreneurs and venture capital in equal parts. His view is to create a global hub in Ireland, attracting the best ideas and providing the best supports. The first Start-up Gathering that ran last week has created a huge groundswell of interest, with hundreds of events in the ‘5 Cities, 5 Days’ island-wide convention. However, for every 100 entrepreneurs taking their first brave steps, Costello reckons there are at least 500 waiting to find the right time, the money or the opportunities to put their […]
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Focal’s Open Mic Night
Listen here to a pre recorded version (without tears) Presentation Arts Centre in Enniscorthy is the most perfect building. An old convent, the conversion to secular building retains the stained glass windows and ornate carved wooden beams arching overhead. When one walks into the hall it is breath-taking, literally, in its beauty. And, as with all ecclesiastical architecture, the acoustics are impeccable. This was the venue for the ‘Open Mic’ run by the Wexford Focal Literary Group and I had been very kindly invited to read. It was my first public reading (unless one counts a reading at EroticaUK of a slightly different nature) and I was relaxed as a newbie on their opening night which is not very much at all. Still a glass of red wine and a lovely welcome from guests already assembled soon calmed those incipient nerves. I had another practical reason to feel nervous. My youngest child had just begun college in Dublin and had, it seemed, emptied her bedroom lock stock and barrel to her digs in Dublin. The tidy bed at home did not look lived in, at least not the way it was normally strewn with clothes, books and electronic devices. She […]
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You put your dick WHERE?
You’d have to have your head under a rock to miss #piggate. It signals the return to parliament and the end of the silly season. You’d almost be forgiven for thinking that the Tories had something to hide, some big scandal coming up along the way or perhaps they do. Perhaps this is the latest detraction story from their abysmal record on the refugee crisis. Cameron is up there with the most militant, entrenched Hungarian politician with his rhetoric and actions. ‘The swarms of migrants’ are not gaining traction in the UK. ‘Build higher fences’ and keep them out. Cameron is right on cue when he marshals the xenophobic excesses in ‘Great’ Britain into ‘Fortress’ Britain. He is guilty of pedalling the myth that multicultural societies do not work. They do. The proof is in London and he just must just try harder. It is interesting in this day and age that the vile accusation is a matter of one man’s word against another. Neither had the benefit of a smart phone and camera to record the incident. I presume the publishers of Lord Ashcroft’s autobiography must have had a team of lawyers swarm all over the claims. And that […]
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Get up and Go – Some Blabs in Advance
Sligo October 17, 2015 #GUAG2015 LIsten to Breifne Earley talking about his Pedal the Planet and whether or not he is a YAMIL (Young-Aged Man in Lycra) in advance of the Get Up and Go Conference in Sligo on October 17 Get Up and Go – Inspirational conference to come to the NorthWest Motivational Team includes Puttnam, Breen and Gates An Inspirational Conference aimed at people wanting to make their dreams a reality is being hosted in Sligo on October 17th. The theme is For your dreams and pays homage to Yeats’ home and poetry. The Get Up and Go team have pulled together an amazing and inspiring range of motivational speakers creating a momentous conference in Sligo and the Northwest. The speakers are all trailblazers, role models and people who inspire. They have had the courage to step outside their comfort zones and followed their dreams into new areas of self-expression, contribution and power. Labour Peer and Filmmaker David Puttnam, Entrepreneur and Secret Millionaire Jim Breen, and life changing, mountain climbing heroine Teena Gates head up a speaker list that will challenge, motivate and change your life. This is one event that you cannot afford to […]
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Twitter = The Modern Machine Gun
The speed at which moral outrage can circle the world can be measured in mouse clicks. Six degrees of separation is all that divides us from Cecil the Lion; that and a few million tweets. For a story that barely grazed the pages of the Zimbabwean newspapers, it had generated an angry online mob complete with death threats within hours. It had swiftly mutated out of social media and mobilised into an on-the-ground band of protestors complete with placards and news cameras. It had even become the source of Jimmy Kimmel’s normally comic opening to his show. The dentist is in hiding with US police checking out the death threats. There are calls for him to be extradited to Zimbabwe to face criminal charges. He won’t be looking at too many dental cavities for the next little while. His five seconds of fame with Cecil might have put him out of a job permanently. This is not the first time Man versus the Twitter machine loses. In fact, the solitary human being is no match for the thousands, nay millions, of bullets from self-righteous online activists. I am reminded of world war one when the machine gun emerged as the […]
Continue readingTrial by Social Media
This article was written on July 9th. It was a tough article to write. Trial by Social Media A recent high profile video of a young woman with a black eye and her child in the background has gone viral. The young woman, tender and vulnerable, talks movingly about her decision to go public on her beating. She introduces her small child who is playing on the stairs and informs us that she also has a seven month old child by the same man. Her video has gone viral and she has received widespread praise from women’s groups, individuals and the majority of media outlets. Her injury was allegedly received at the hands of her partner, a man who she tells us that she loved with all her heart. It is a very emotional and moving video. However, and here I almost hesitate to write, I feel uncomfortable while watching this video. The first reason is that she talks about their life together and the affairs he is said to have had and even the fact that he has fathered other children. These affairs and additional children while horrible to the woman, are not hanging offences. It is not […]
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Travel writer, South Africa: Swimming with hippos and other adventures from the veld
In a series of reader submissions to the Irish Times Amateur Travel Writer competition, we meet Jillian Godsil, who finds herself in the midst of adventure on an equestrian safari Sometimes, oftentimes, the things you really should do never feature on the average bucket list. For example, it would take a random ideas generator to put hippos and swimming together. The category of ‘swimming with’ usually includes non-violent animals such as dolphins or whales, and maybe sharks but that typically includes a cage or two. I was on an equestrian safari in South Africa in the Waterberg region when I met my hippos. We had done all sorts of activities on horseback; witnessed giraffes up close, viewed any number of gazelle take fancy and flight, watched pronking sprinkbok with our mouths open (and our mounts firmly on all four legs) and had even ridden in a cloud of wildebeest as they whirled in formation across a dusty plain. We once rode softly past a white rhino and her calf, the quieter of the African rhinos, and she barely looked at the horses and riders as we tiptoed past, trying to balance cameras and click pictures […]
Continue readingTick Tock
Tick tock Listen here Tick tock The clock Stopped The hopes and fears Of all the years Were met in Greece tonight Arears Arears The bankers cheers And blood crept down the wall A people poised The choices posed Not even Solomon could call Under the orb of a constant eye That counts in coins alone The ancient cradle of polls and votes Was backed into corners by suited louts Spotlight of world rights Erased its autonomy Off with its head – Give it a frontal lobotomy The queen of hearts could not have been as cruel Please may I have some more – Achtung give it gruel And blood seeped through the ancient stones As booted bankers stepped over bones Cracking and crunching the feeble sticks. And cheering acolytes called them by name Praised their virtue, passed on the blame To a faceless race where bewilderment ticks What match is flesh for filthy lucre What match is right for coins and notes What match is humanity for the pounds, shillings and pence Of a world that is not right in the head Of a world that denies the existence of the heart […]
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Live from the pitch on England/Ireland Soccer Friendly June 6th, 2015
LISTEN TO BOTH ANTHEMS HERE Wayne Rooney is tiny. Really tiny. I stood less than ten feet away from him on Sunday, on the pitch in the Aviva, and I reckoned I was taller than him. When I got home I checked and so I am. But then I reckoned I was taller than most of the Irish and English football players as the two teams lined up before the momentous replay of the friendly match twenty years ago. The original match that was stopped short with rioting. I was part of the Island of Ireland Peace Choir and we had been rehearsing for the past two months. We had a four part harmony for the British National Anthem and a three part for the Irish. There was no favouritism. We had to play it down the middle, play fair and make sure each team got a rousing welcome. Jack Charlton, on the other hand, is very tall. He was also very emotional. A little skinny, he has not been well recently apparently. His grin was ear to ear. The crowd, all of the crowd, gave him a standing ovation. He was moved to tears. We clapped hard. The crowd […]
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Want to feel invisible? Try hunting for a job at 50
First printed in the Irish Independent, May 5, 2015 and featured on The John Murray Show on May 8, 2015 – invisible at 50 podcast. Oops, it happened again. There I was, casually sauntering along through life, sending off job applications and foolishly expecting a reply but nothing happens. Not so much as a ‘Thank you’. How had it come to this? When had I morphed from experienced professional to an unwanted ‘has-been’? Had it happened overnight? Well, it certainly feels as though I have become an overnight failure. Yesterday, my years on this earth promised experienced, talented, sought-after skills. Today, it appears those same years have somehow put me into a new, unemployable category. I can’t even boast grey hair talent as I am not that old. Instead, I exist in a dark limbo-land of invisibility. Welcome to the new 50. We are suckered into believing that 50 is the new 40; that because we still fit into our skinny jeans, still hang out in trendy cafés, still listen to cool music, that we are part of thriving culture, but when it comes to applying for jobs, that date of birth is the kiss […]
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