About DigitalDarragh
Writing pages that explain who you are is probably one of the hardest things to do. I’m regularly asked to give a bio for musical performances and each time I’m just not quite happy with it. This one will be no different I’m sure. With that said. Who am I. I’m a father of two brilliant children, a husband to a very patient wife, a techy who loves learning about anything and everything related to technology, a musician passionit about traditional Irish music and hopefully a nice enough bloke that’s reasonably dependable and only occasionally a pain in the rear.
I was given the name DigitalDarragh by a friend in a pub nearly 20 years ago. We were talking about websites and website names. He decided then and there that my new website was going to be called DigitalDarragh. So there you have it. Nearly twenty years later and the name is still going and so too is the website.
Since the time the site started there have been a lot of changes. I’ve worked for about four employers, I’ve traveled to a lot of countries around the world including America, Canada, Israel, germany, Italy, Spane, Austraia, France, England, The netherlands and Tailand, I’ve been on national television in Italy and Ireland several times, I’ve played live in front of nine thousand people, I’ve written applications in .net, I’ve been bullied and intimidated by a horrible person in a company that I had the misfortune to work with for a very short time, I had my gall bladder removed, I got married and became a father to two amazing children, I’ve trained with three guide dogs, I’ve played music in every county in Ireland and I’ve made amazing friendships. Overall, the good has really overshaddowed the bad. I’m a very lucky man.
I work with Dublin City University in the Information System and Services department as a senior system administrator. There, I specialize in Microsoft technologies such as active directory, SCCM, IIS, SQL, .net, PowerShell and Azure. In my perfect world, everything would be automated and nothing would need to be repeated so that I could spend more time playing music.
In the first four years of joining DCU, I think I am not over stating things by saying that my impact has helped to transform many user facing systems. Some of my most notable projects include implementing SCCM, reducing complexity and increasing efficiency in active directory, implementing multi factor authentication and self-service account management, managing the migration of DNS, DHCP and NTP to new highly resilient infrastructure and developing a new student on boarding system.
When ever I can, i.e, when ever the Irish weather allows it, I love to be outside. I’ve recently got back into biking. Emma, my wife has recently learned so it’s a great thing to do together. We’ve bought a tandem and can regularly be seem speeding around the streets of Drogheda. It’s very funny listening to children commenting about this huge bike they’ve never seen before.
Speaking of Emma, you will find a picture of her at the top of this page. I was fortunate to marry her on new years even 2012.
The picture above was taken in Canada. It’s of an old rail line that was converted to a cycle track. I wrote a blog post about that cycle in 2014.
Please let me introduce you to Nama, my current guide dog. This lab retriever cross is a playful silly idiot but when the harness is on he’s a hard working kean and focused working animal. Nama is certainly one of a kind. He doesn’t particularly mind if I walk into something but on the other hand if I want to find somewhere I haven’t been to before he’s all too happy to make it as easy as possible for me. He’s just absolutely exceptional.
I must mention the amazing work done by Irish guide dogs for the Blind. They receive 85% of their funding from public donations so as you can imagine, as money in Ireland isn’t xactly plentyful they are having a hard time of it at the moment. It hasn’t stopped them from providing an outstanding and crucial service though.
The below picture is of my first guide dog Freddie. This was my first so he will always be special. For that reason, he still deserves a picture on this page.
