About eight years ago, Pádraig started An Saol, a blog and podcast using the amazing possibilities of the internet to enter into a conversation with the rest of the world, in Irish. He made friends through his blog and got in touch with people in places he hadn’t even heard of before. He got a logo designed, for half nothing, by an internet logo design discounter, and he put that logo on t-shirts, fridge magnets, and mugs.

And then, someone nominated his blog for the Blog Awards.

What had been a passion became an obsession. He really could not believe what was happening. To him! There were people out there, people he had never met, people who spoke Irish, people in all sorts of different corners of the world, who were interested what he was writing and talking about, who thought that An Saol was great, who had nominated him for the Best Blog Award in the Irish Language category. He got everybody to vote for him, checked out the competition, bought a ticket for the award ceremony, but then didn’t win a prize. He thought that he was probably too young, that they hadn’t taken him serious enough.

For Pádraig, this was the beginning of a ‘career’ in broadcasting in the Irish language. He moved on from the ‘studio’ in his bedroom to real studios in Raidió na Gaeltachta, Raidió Rí-Rá, and Raidió na Life. I started to listen to Irish Language radio, though I didn’t understand a word. Then I began to recognise some words, eventually I could guess what he was talking about. His excitement was contagious. And the highlights were interviews. Imagine, he was interviewing people live on the radio – and they took the time to talk to him! It was pure magic!

Pádraig today was grand. It was a bit of an ordinary day. For the first time in ages it was raining outside, so there was no question of him going out. He continues to eat ok (a few spoons of finely pureed hospital food and yoghourts), we lift him out into the wheelchair for a few hours, do some exercises, and block his tracheostomy for a while to get him used to breathing in and out through his mouth and nose. He is receiving extra therapies to try and strengthen muscles in his core and neck. The idea is to get him to a point where the tracheostomy can be removed for good. What a day that will be!

Today, I got almost carried away myself with the Blog Awards. Hospi-tales is now at number eight. It it stays amongst the top ten, it’ll be short-listed and judged by a panel. The voting will go on for several weeks and you can vote every week. So – please keep up your support and, as importantly, keep asking your friends to give us a vote every week, and get your friends’ friends to mobilise their social networks!

Wouldn’t it be great if Pádraig’s blog got the prize this time around?

Finally, remember to keep the date for the poker night for Pádraig (23 August) and, if you like swimming in the open sea, the date for the Sea Swim for Pádraig (06 September)!