Sean keeps it real in Boyle for over 20 years

For over two decades Boyle native Sean O’Dowd has been the face of Boyle on-line.

Now the gregarious 82-year-old, father of actor Chris O’Dowd, has decided to call it a day and retire from his realboyle.com website.

Over the years realboyle.com had been an important source of news for the people of Boyle and those with Boyle connection around the world.

First registered online in December 2003, it was a great source of national and international news, weather and local updates, and was always intertwined with Sean’s wit, humour and personal touch.

Now 82, Sean felt it was the right time to step away from the website. “I’m 82 years old now, and I think it’s time to hang up the saddle,” he laughed as he added, “and lead a quieter type of life, that doesn’t require me to update a website. I will get up in the morning and not feel pressure that I have to update a website all of a sudden.” 

 He is already enjoying the freedom of retirement, pointing out: “I already find that I don’t get up as early as I used to every morning. I used to be up at around half six, checking round what needs to be checked on, and now I don’t get up until around 8.” 

He was inspired to create realboyle.com after seeing others share their experiences on the internet, feeling Boyle deserved its own corner on the internet. “I remember there was a particular one down in Cork, it could’ve been called real Cork, and I felt, gosh I could do something like that for our own local town here, and I think it would have been the first one representing Boyle in all of its glory.” 

Realboyle.com won a national award in 2006 for its services to the community, and Sean spoke of the local people of Boyle kept motivating him to keep updating the website and that he incorporated running the website into his daily routine.

“It actually became a sort of part of my day in that I got up early in the morning and did some checking around to keep people informed on realboyle. Sometimes it might not have been directly Boyle related, it could have been of national or international concern, but I felt that it had an importance of some sort, and that people of the area should be aware of the particular event or detail,” he said.

With all his new found time, Sean has plans to keep himself busy, “I do a lot of pen drawing, and I feel that I will be spending more time at that, and I am the proud owner of the WhatsApp application and we have a family group chat on that, and I’ll be letting my family see that kind of activity.” 

He added: “Once my family is aware of what I’m at, everything after that is secondary.” “At this stage I hand over the baton to whoever wants to take it. There are plenty of younger people now who have an interest in things like that. I already see a couple of Facebook pages that are representing Boyle pretty well, and letting people know what’s happening. I think Boyle is a wonderful place to live and to work, and I will always be a total supporter of the town of Boyle.”