Tá Colm Ó Cinnseala mar Oifigeach Gaeilge sa Chlub. Tá cónaí air sna Forbacha le blianta fada. Tá a shaol caite aige i ngort na Gaeilge ag iarradh ár dteanga dúchais a chaomhnú agus a láidriú ach go háirithe i nGaeltacht na Gaillimhe.
Colm’s first experience of sailing was as a young Dublin teenager in the early seventies bringing turf to Aran from Caladh Thadhg in An Cheathrú Rua aboard the bád mór – An Mhaighdean Mara. That experience instilled in him a love of hookers and of sailing in general. Upon moving to Conamara in the late eighties, one of the first purchases Colm and a group of friends made was that of a gleoiteog bheag – An Eala Dhubh.
This was later followed by a Hunter Yacht 273 yacht – An Sí Gaoithe – which he sailed extensively on the West Coast and he undertook a few trips between Galway and Dublin in her.
Colm owned the Sí Gaoithe for about thirty years and during this time he undertook extensive marine training culminating in acquiring a Yachtmasters Coastal Skipper license. This led on to occasional professional and private sailing trips in the Med in Greece, Turkey and Croatia, and included one memorable sail from Galway to Spain. In the early nineties Colm was involved with the building, under a Community Employment Scheme, of two gleoiteogs, An Muirín and An Coisméig Mór.
These were built/ restored in Na Forbacha. Along with others, Colm was instrumental in setting up a community hooker sailing club (called Bádóirí Lurgan) in Cois Fharraige so as to make use of these boats in a structured way. Bádóirí Lurgan partook in Geallta Báid (traditional boat regattas) in Conamara and, on one memorable occasion, took home a winner’s prize at Cruinniú na mBád in Cinn Mhara!
Upon selling the yacht in 2023 Colm joined Cumann Seoltóireacht Húicéirí na Gaillimhe. His professional life was mostly spent in the ICT Branch of the Department of Defence in Renmore in Galway. Upon completion of a Masters in sociolinguistics in NUIG in 2009 Colm left the Civil Service and developed a linguistics consultancy business specialising in minority languages, such as Irish.
He has retired four times, most recently from the position of Research Fellow with NUIG. Sin é a scéalsa!