Sunday, November 9, 2008

Web Communications


As mentioned on a number of occasions on this blog, the presence of the Irish Dominican friars on the internet through its website http://www.dominicanfriars.ie/ has brought much attention to the work of vocations promotion. Indeeed, since the site was launched in 2007, enquiries regarding vocations rose substantially (in fact, enquiries trebled!).


The work of compiling and presenting new and relevant information about the ministry and work of the Irish Dominican friars is a difficult task. Having an attractive, informative and appealing website for this purpose (in several languages) demands much attention. I was glad to have been associated with the website of our province.


The Provincial Chapter of the Irish Dominican friars held in September has appointed another friar to manage the website, on the recommendation of the Provincial. The site has now been handed over and I wish our brother well in his task.


I would like to thank and compliment one of our younger friars in the province, Fergus Ryan OP, without whom the website would not have happened. He convinced me of the urgent need for a good provincial website that presented the life and work of the province in a positive light, that highlighted the Dominican vocation, offered practical information about all our centres, kept people regularly informed of happenings and offered some opportunities for preaching. Getting the website to launch stage involved him working with professional web designers and those contributing content (texts, images etc). In my opinion, his management of the website has been inadequately acknowledged, and I hope that this brief mention through the blog will go some way towards rectifying that.


I owe him, as indeed does the province, a great debt of gratitude.

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