Even in 1982, £30 a week was not much of a wage. But that was what Rod McGahon offered me. And the job was better than being idle. So I joined his company, Declan Computers, to sell floppy disks, printer paper and pre-printed stationery (computer media products).
Rod had worked in Dublin for Telex Computers and Hewlett-Packard before setting up this firm – originally known as Declan Europe – in Barna, Connemara. He did a deal with Memorex Corporation to sell its their products both hardware and media in the west. Memorex produced disk drives and communications controllers for mainframe installations. In addition, before I joined the company, Rod became a reseller of the Commodore PET microcomputer.
I had just completed a business studies qualification at the Regional Technical College (RTC) in Galway. The only exposure I had to computers in the RTC was an introduction to computer programming (which really put me off computers with all the 1s and 0s). I registered with an employment agency and they introduced me to Rod. He hired me so that he could focus on hardware sales, while I handled all the media products.
Rod was a great salesman. He lived for selling and was constantly talking to someone on the phone. He was also a mild spoofer and he was in his element when he closed a sale – we had many great celebrations. I don’t think that I would have become a salesperson if I had not been influenced by him.
In 1982 Declan Computers moved from Connemara to Francis Street in the centre of Galway. The new premises had a proper retail shopfront – the first computer store of this type in the city.
Galway was already something of a technology hub, because multinationals like Digital Equipment and Northern Telecom ran operations there. But that did not mean that its citizens were computer literate. Computing was still regarded as something that large companies used, whereas smaller companies found it too expensive and complicated to get involved. Computers were still too expensive to attract hobbyist buyers.
Commodore’s products were aimed at the smaller companies who needed to computerize their accounts for the first time. We specialized in this area but found we were teaching people how to do double entry rather than showing them how to use the accounts program on a computer. We could offer basic financial applications on the Commodore PET, using cassette tapes to store the data.
We also introduced the Commodore VIC-20 home computer and its successor, the Commodore 64. These were essentially games machines and only the PET was sold as a business computer. One of our bigger installations was at the RTC, where Brendan Doheny did a lot of programming to setup a student record system.
Second level schools generally purchased Apple II computers. We tried to sell the Commodore 64 but found that it was regarded as a games computer, not an education tool.
We also started selling Wang word processors and the Sirius 1 personal computer, which used the CP/M operating system. I liked that machine and found that it was good for word processing, but the price was too high for most of the prospective customers.
Declan Computers grew to employ half a dozen people in Galway, including a service manager from Wales, technicians Kevin Glynn and Declan Kennedy and Mary Burke who took care of accounts.
Rod McGahon’s next initiative changed the direction of the company and steered it away from microcomputers. In 1984 Declan Computers took on Dataproducts’ line printers and dot matrix printers – a product set that complemented the Memorex controllers. From then on the company was clearly a computer peripherals specialist. It never got involved with the generation of PCs that ran MS-DOS.
At the start of 1985 Declan Computers opened a Dublin office in Upper Merrion Street, renting the entire building. It had three bedrooms on the top floor. So Rod, Declan Kennedy and myself lived on the premises.
I worked there for two years, cold calling computer installations and trying to raise their awareness of Dataproducts. The name of the game was to sell hardware rather than media products, because of the higher commission associated with it. During this time ICS Computing tried to recruit me, offering a decent salary and a company car. But Rod persuaded me to stay with him. Soon afterwards, however, I departed for TCW Supplies, where the remuneration package was better. That move meant going back to selling disks and paper.
Declan Computers had a number of moves in Dublin from Merrion Square. It moved to Donnybrook and then to Stillorgan where the name changed to Comsys. I lost contact with the company when I moved back to Galway in 1988.
What used to kill me about living in Dublin was the traffic. I was glad, therefore, to return to Galway when the opportunity arose. This started with a phone call from Brendan Smith. His company, Genesis Software, had grown out of University College Galway. It was primarily a developer of software for manufacturing applications. But it had also sold PCs. Cork-based Glanmire Electronics had agreed to take over the hardware trade and the company was going to need a Galway-based manager. I was looking for something more challenging and this was it.
Glanmire’s founder Joe Byrne had worked as an Apple engineer and his company was an Apple dealer. Joe and his wife Noreen ran Glanmire Electronics from their Watergrasshill home in Co. Cork. I had no previous experience with Apple systems. In 1988 the centrepiece of its computer range was the Macintosh Plus and the most important application for the Macintosh was desktop publishing. When we opened the Galway branch of Glanmire Electronics on Prospect Hill, we focused on desktop publishing, selling systems with Aldus PageMaker software. I was initially supported by Myles (have forgotten his surname), who could not only service the systems but was also a brilliant graphics designer.
The PC trade in Galway had evolved since my time there with Declan Computers. Passax Electronics, run by Liam McCallion and Padraic Murphy, was a Microsoft specialist. ICE Computer Services had partnerships with Digital and Wang. There were also Infoscience (run by Sean Hughes and selling Olivetti PCs), and Multiserve on Tuam Road. Other companies were run by Rod and Peter O’Driscoll.
The biggest Apple users in the region were University College Galway, Northern Telecom and Udaras na Gaeltachta – we lost that account over a weekend after consultants came in and advised them to go to Windows instead.
Desktop publishing was a fantastic business to be involved in. Printers and newspapers were starting to move from old style hot metal printing and applications like Quark Xpress and Photoshop made the production so much easier. We introduced new publishing systems to newspapers like The Connacht Tribune, The Tuam Herald, The Leinster Express and The Roscommon Herald.
By 1990 I was keen to set up on my own and, following advice from Bob Taylor at Apple Computer Sales, we reached an agreement with Joe Byrne to buy his Galway operation. I changed the name of the business to Galmac Computers – a name that lasted until 2018, when the company merged with another Apple partner, CompuB.
Last edit: November 2018
© Tom Callanan 2018