Meet Kerrill Thornhill

There"s a lot going on in Offaly that you don"t know about. For example, did you know that the company behind the Sunday Tribune"s new website is from Shannonbridge? Or that as well as that project, the company also offers a 12,000 word application for your mobile phone called "Get the Focal" that quickly gives you a translation from English to Irish? The company in question, Maithú IT Solutions, consists of three Shannonbridge brothers Michael, Kerrill and David Thornhill, who have all made the switch this year to working full time for Maithú. 'It"s a bit of a step, but it"s interesting,' David says when I sat down for a chat with him and Kerrill - the public face of the new company - in Shannonbridge. Maithú was set up almost four years ago, with support from the Offaly County Enterprise Board. 'We started out part time,' Kerrill explains. 'The first thing we did was the Shannonbridge website - www.shannonbridge.com. We got a lot of help from the Offaly Enterprise Board. When we set up the company I did night classes in Tullamore with them and they were very helpful. They also have a mentor scheme. It"s very daunting if you"re not from a business background to go setting up a company. It"s all new and it"s quite confusing, so it"s a help to have somebody that can help you and provide you with advice.' Of course no doubt the work of a company is a doddle - it"s the choosing a name that"s the hard bit! 'We spent a lot of time thinking of a company name,' Kerrill agrees. 'Whenever anyone did something good we"d always say Maithú - it"s just a catchphrase, like "nice one", "well done". We could have called it Shannonbridge Technical or another IT name, but they don"t mean anything, they"re all standard. And one of the things we wanted to plug was the translator so Maithú fitS well.' One slight problem with the name is how people unfamiliar with the Irish language pronounce it and go on to wonder what it means, but David, looking on the bright side, said this just means that potential customers of the company will learn something new. Twins Kerrill and David and older brother Michael have two other siblings not involved in Maithú. But there"s no question that they were rejected by the company. It"s more the company was rejected by them. 'They weren"t interested,' Kerrill says. Even without the full set of siblings, Maithú"s working environment is very much a family unit. The three brothers, who all went to national school in Shannonbridge, secondary school in Ferbane and did Engineering in UCD, have all come back to working together after years of other experience. After college, Kerrill worked in mechanical engineering in Kilbeggan, then in Northern Ireland and also lived in Australia for four years. David worked with Laois County Council, then with a Dublin-based company and then did a bit of travelling before coming back to Maithú, and Michael got a PhD in Engineering in Belfast. 'He went down the road of computer programming,' Kerrill says, 'so he"s very experienced in that area.' They might be working together, but they"re certainly not living together. In fact, the three are geographically quite spread out. Michael lives in Ballina in Mayo, Kerrill lives in Dublin, while just David lives in their native Shannonbridge. 'We all still consider Shannonbridge home though, we"re all Offaly men,' Kerrill says. 'We"re still proud of our roots and it"s a good base to have here.' To that end, brother Michael still makes the trip home to play football. Kerrill says both he and Michael would be quite sporty, while David says he"s better at the spectating part of sports. With the Sunday Tribune website now launched, Maithú is looking for another big high end project to work on. Until then however, they have the small matter of "Get the Focal" to amuse them. Literally, the "Get the Focal" service allows users to get words. Anyone interested in checking out the application can text Focal to 53503 for the cost of a text. A link will be sent to your phone, and if you click on this link you can download the application onto your phone for whatever your internet usage charge is. Once that"s done, you will have 12,000 direct translations from English into Irish in the applications folder of your phone. Half of these will be accessible to you immediately, and if you like the application and want to unlock the other half you can do so for just €5. 'There"s very strong interest,' Kerrill says about "Get the Focal". 'Mostly it"s from the Irish language sector. Irish language stations are all very keen on it. 'On "Get the Focal" we got great help from Foras na Gaeilge and Enterprise Ireland as well through the CEIM scheme. There is a lot of help out there if anyone else out there is thinking of setting up their own company. You just have to go and look for it. 'We developed a database over time, but Foras na Gaeilge made sure that what we were putting in was correct. 'We just got promotional material. What we"re probably going to do is send mail shots out to various schools or Irish organisations. We"ll probably do that through Foras na Gaeilge. We"ll send leaflets out to adult education classes, libraries, places like that as well. It"d be nice to get schools involved because I think it"s of most use to students.' The three are all crossing the fingers and working to make "Get the Focal" a huge success, and though all three work for Maithú full time now, they took things slowly and gradually worked up to that point. 'It"s very hard to take the plunge and go full time,' Kerrill says. 'It"s better to start part time, dip the toe in before taking the plunge.' Working out well so far, the brothers say working from home in their own time is not a problem. 'I"ve worked from home before,' David says. 'You don"t have to do 9am to 5pm. It"s not for everyone. It can ruin your home. If you"re not careful rather than working at home you"ll be living in the office. You do need to draw a line to make a distinction. It helps to have a structured day. Having the flexibility is great, but you have to be careful with it.' Now is as good a time as any, and probably better than most, to launch the Irish application, with the language"s popularity increasing. 'In the last year since Des Bishop"s show has come out, Irish is a lot cooler,' Kerrill says. 'People have a stronger interest in their own culture. You"d be surprised how many people speak Irish quite well. Since we"ve launched "Get the Focal" we"re getting phone calls and emails from people who speak Irish fluently. I get phone calls all the time and people are speaking away in Irish. It"s really challenging because I"m kind of an intermediate level Irish speaker. I get half the conversation and then I have to get them to slow down. I"ve definitely been speaking a lot more Irish in the last few months aon account of this though, and I"d really like to go to adult classes. The only way to learn is to speak it and there"s not enough opportunity for that now.' 'You need to use it in social settings,' David agrees. 'A language means nothing in a book - it"s only when you use it it means something.' And that wraps up my time with the brothers, who incidentally all appear in a picture on the wall of a Donegal pub wearing their Offaly jerseys under a title of the Offaly Surf Team! More information on Maithú is available on www.maithu.com. "Get the Focal" is available by texting "Focal" to 53503. If you know someone who should be featured on these pages, contact Laura in the newsroom on 057 9321403 (ext 24) or email laura@offalyindependent.ie.