THIS WEEK: FERGAL O’BYRNE THE NET VISIONARY HOOKED ON WRITING I DIDN’T WANT TO GET TO THE AGE OF 65 AND SAY THIS IS WHAT I SHOULD HAVE DONE YEARS AGO
AMY LEWIS TALKS TO THE WEXFORD-BASED TECH ENTREPRENEUR WHO IS MAKING HIS NAME AS A WRITER FOR STAGE, TV AND FILM, AND EVEN AS A SONGWRITER
SERVING as CEO of a major tech business and losing €3m in a social network investment that never took off are things that would age most people by decades.
But not Fergal O’Byrne. The former CEO of both Sonru and the Irish Internet Assocation describes himself as a ‘ born again child’ who has a newfound spring is his step and he’s hoping that step brings him one bit closer to achieving his dream.
That dream? To win an Oscar in the next ten years.
Since stepping down as CEO of Wexford based video-interviewing company Sonru in 2012, Fergal has devoted his full attention to his original passion of writing. Working in solitude on creative projects is world’s apart from hectic hours and discussing internet policy in the Dail but Fergal wouldn’t have it any other way.
‘I got writing as soon as I finished up with Sonru. I sat down on January 2, 2013, with my laptop and started typing and I haven’t stopped since,’ said Fergal, who was born in Donnybrook but has lived in Wexford for 13 years.
The moment was one that Fergal had been planning since long before he carved a name for himself in the internet sphere.
‘I always had a passion for writing from an early age. Years ago, I got the opportunity to write a book and I thought, this is it, I’ve made it. I thought I could become a full-time writer. I got my first royalty cheque in the post and at the time, it was for the equivalent of about €660. I thought that was brilliant. I rang the publisher and asked when the next one would come and he told me that it would be next year. I realised then that I wasn’t going to make money from writing. I loved it but if I couldn’t get a life from it, it wasn’t going to work for me. I was frustrated so I stopped altogether. I didn’t write for 15 years. I didn’t even go to the theatre.’
Though Fergal’s book ‘ Trolley Ride in Manhattan’ was a big seller in the States when it was published, it didn’t earn him enough to sustain a decent lifestyle. After his dreams of becoming an author came crashing down, Fergal put his energy back into his other love: technology. He had already spent 14 years working with Eircom and obtained a degree in Electrical Engineering from Dublin Institute of Technology. Following this, he had set up a company called Webbusters and by 2000, it was growing rapidly.
‘Before I wrote the book, I still had my passion for content so I decided to set up a content company called Webbusters. I set it up a time when websites were new. It grew from me in a room to 40 people and then I sold it. I had the buzz for technology from then on.’
The sale of the company in 2003 opened the door to a new beginning for Fergal. At the time, he was living in Crumlin with his wife Maiken and though he enjoyed the Dublin buzz, the pair longed to relocate somewhere less crowded. They selected five places around the country as potential homes and soon settled on Wexford. Palace West has been the place that he has called home for the last 13 years.
Fergal’s move to Wexford paved the way to a very successful future but it wasn’t all positive from the get go. In the year’s after the sale of Webbusters, Fergal became a self-described ‘serial investor’ but not all of his endeavours went as planned.
‘I invested in a social network called IGOpeople, which launched in 2008. It was going to be as good as Facebook. We spent €3m and then ran out of money so it never really went anywhere.’
‘I always refer to it as the one that got away. But I can’t let it get to me. It’s just a good topic of conversation for a dinner party now,’ he said. ‘I learned a lot more from the ones that bombed that the ones that made money.’
And Fergal certainly did move on. In the years after moving to Wexford, Fergal had become the CEO of the Irish Internet Association. His job required him to advise government ministers about internet policy and infrastructure at a time when the digital landscape was rapidly changing. During his four-year stint, the association grew from a voluntary organisation into a sustainable trade association, expanded its membership by 50 per cent and according to the association, it was in the ‘strongest position it had ever been in’ on Fergal’s departure in 2009.
His decision to move on came after crossing paths with Ed Hendrick, whose idea for a new video-interviewing company in Wexford was bubbling under the surface. This idea developed and soon came to light in the form of Sonru: a Wexford-based video technology company. Fergal got on board as an investor in the early days and the business went on to become an international success, with regional offices in the UK, Australia, Singapore and France to name a few. He served as CEO for four years, before he
stood down in 2012.
‘It became one of the biggest tech companies in Wexford at the time and it was great to be involved in it. But I always knew that Ed was going to take over at some point again. So I kept working and saved up so that when that time came, I could dedicate myself to writing full-time. It was like an engine running in the back of my mind. Throughout all of the years of doing other things, I was always working towards this idea,’ he said.
This journey brought him back to that fateful day on January 2, 2013, when Fergal decided to pick up his pen – or in true nature of a tech lover, his laptop – once more.
‘It was like a dam bursting. All of the things I had been planning on working on over the years just came flowing out. I had never taken notes so was really surprised with the sensation of it all,’ he said.
Fergal didn’t leave technology behind for good; he still sits on the board of four companies: Sonru, Sipario, CCD, and IEDR. Last year, he was one of ten ‘Net Visionaries’ to be inducted into the inaugural IIA Hall of Fame for his contributions to technology in Ireland. Today, he describes the honour as one of his proudest moments.
Fergal’s jump to becoming a writer has led him down various paths – from short story writing to songwriting and everything in between. He has even dabbled in what he describes as his first love, stagewriting, with a little help from a well-known Wexford playwright.
‘Billy Roche is a legend in my eyes and has been so kind to me throughout this entire time. He has acted as a sounding board for ideas. I was always a fan and then when I finally met him, he was so normal and down to earth.’
‘I didn’t want to get to the age of 65 and say this is what I should have done years ago. I was 47 when I left Sonru and Billy told me that I have another 30 good years of writing in me!’
Fergal’s early plays featured in the Dublin Fringe Festivals and an early work ‘Peaches Will Only Come Home in a Blaze of Glory’ was selected to be part of the Abbey Theatre’s National Playwright’s Programme. In 2013, he picked up the Listowel Writer’s Week full-length play award for his play ‘A Dragon’s Tale’ about a Wexford man’s tale of emigration, while another play ‘Folie-a-Deux’ was runner-up in the competition in 2015.
Of plays he says he will ‘admit to’, Fergal said he has ten.
Though Fergal doesn’t concentrate all of his efforts on writing for stage, it is the one thing that gets his creative juices going more than anything.
‘When your work is on the stage, you have the magic of seeing it being performed to a live audience. It’s different everytime. I must admit that, if my play is on, I will go to see it every night. I could be sitting and home and wondering how everything is going on stage and I always end up going.’
Though Fergal’s first literary success was with his one and only book, he doesn’t plan on writing another one soon. In fact, he looks back on his first effort with an ounce of embarrassment.
‘I wrote the first book after I won a Hennessy Short Story Award for a short story that I entered. The publisher rang me after the win and asked if I had a book and I just said “mmmhmm”. The next few weeks were hectic. I read it back a while ago and it was basically just a stream of conciousness. I loved it at the time, though it’s a bit cringy now. But so what, I have a book published and that’s the main thing.’
Fergal’s reason for moving away from penning another novel is not due to any shame or bad feelings but rather, due to the demanding nature of being an author coupled with the low income it brings. He has shifted his focus to screenwriting and has been involved in projects in Ireland and abroad. His first screen success ‘Glass Ceiling’ was shortlisted for the PAGE International Screenwriting Awards in 2014, while two of his works for TV have been shortlisted in the BBCs Scriptroom programe. In recent months, the first episode of his series ‘Hipster Verse’ aired in the US after a sale to Dish Network. He describes the series as a parody of modern – day hipsters in a coffee shop set in Vancouver.
‘ That has gone down really well and was really fun to do. We are working on season two and three at the moment,’ he said.
In terms of exciting projects to come, Fergal has plenty in the pipeline. His short film ‘Propellor’ was recently selected for funding for the RTE Filmbase Short Shots initiative. The project will be filmed in February and later screened at the Galway Film Festival.
‘It’s a story about guilt and redemption. The main character is a woman who has been in an accident and has been paralysed from the neck down. She commits herself to walking across Ireland with the man who crashed into her. I thought of it after watching an amazing documentary about a woman in a horseriding accident.’
Fergal has also teamed up with a German journalist on a short film called ‘Insel’, which is focused on a fictional German Chancellor’s visit to the Wild Atlantic Way and a subsequent assassination attempt. The project is currently being produced by a German production company and Fergal said he has ‘ high hopes’ for it.
Added to that, Fergal has dabbled in songwriting, which he said he spends the least amount of time on. He works predominantly with Glentiege producer John Kinsella, who brings life to his lyrics before they get the artists involved. He has worked with artists such as Des Toibin and George Hutton, and some of their songs have shot up the iTunes charts. If he could have any artist perform his lyrics, it would be Nick Cave, as he believes their poetic styles are quite similar.
Whether writing for screen or song, Fergal gets his inspiration from a wide array of sources but his love for America is one that has featured in many of his works. If Palace West is the place that he has settled down, New York is his home from home and he visits the city about six times a year.
‘I just love New York. I would walk around New York for eight hours on my own. There are just so many cultures and nationalities there; it’s a complete melting pot. I heard that they speak about 232 languages there and that just blows my mind. I always go on my own and my wife understands. She just says “I get it, just go. You need your New York thing”.’
Fergal has travelled across the US and believes he has visited every state bar Alaska. Although he still expresses his love for the country, on examining it in the run-up to the US election, he said he noticed a change in attitude.
‘ This is the worst time I have ever seen in all of my years looking at and visiting America. We are seeing all this hatred and bold racism flare up which has been smouldering away there for years.’
‘I think America as a superpower has probably had its day. It’s sad to see this all happening as I have been to some of the states where the trouble is now and have never met any extremists before.’
Whether or not America continues to be a source of inspiration for Fergal’s writing, only time will tell. Thankfully, he always has several project bubbling away at the one time – ten to be exact.
‘I have a rule that I work on ten things at once. I decided on ten things as that was the amount that would fit on my whiteboard!’
‘Some of the projects don’t work out but I have to be thick-skinned about it. I have no problem with rejection now. I used to go undercover for about a day when I was turned down.’
Something that Fergal doesn’t feel the need to schedule in on his whiteboard is time for his family. He lives with his Danish wife Maiken – who still works in Sonru – and two children, Astrid and Deirdre-Kate. Working as a writer has allowed him to take on the role of stay-home dad, one that he has taken on with great gusto.
‘All of the meals are cooked when my family come home from work. I’m all about healthy and organic food,’ said Fergal, who added that since making the switch, he is much healthier and more energetic.
‘ The kids see my job as kind of funny. They wouldn’t have really known about Sonru as they were far too young then. It was a much more stressful time with very long hours but they wouldn’t have known about that. Now they love going to school and saying “my Pa wrote a song and we were in the music video”. They think it’s quite cool at the moment but I know they will probably be chronically embarrassed by me as teenagers!’
Until then, the girls are singing his praises and, perhaps following on in their father’s footsteps, by creating some fiction themselves.
‘My nine-year-old went in to her teacher and said that her Dad won an Oscar. I had to tell them that this wasn’t the case but it was quite funny!’ said Fergal.
The girls hadn’t picked up the idea from nowhere, however. Fergal’s number one life goal is to pick up an Oscar for his work and will strive to make it happen over the next ten years.
‘I have a few life ambitions but the main one is to win an Oscar. I will work very hard to do it. I have always believed in being ambitious and it’s something I want to strive for. If I win, perhaps then, I can hang up my pen.’