Pete
My introduction to Connemara was a field course during my zoology studies at Swansea in South Wales. At the time, I was in thrall to marine biology heroes Jacques Cousteau and Hans Hass, and their exploits on television.
In 1964, I worked as a schoolteacher on the South Pacific island of Tarawa. It was paradise. I taught myself to scuba dive, which I kept up after returning to Swansea. Despite further travels and a PhD at Swansea, my days in Galway never left me. Yearning to return, I secured a post-doctoral fellowship there. I fell in love with the people, culture, and craic, not to mention a Connemara girl in the front row at my first lecture.
After our marriage, Paula and I headed to Port Sudan to join the Cambridge Coral Starfish Research Group. Catriona was born in Khartoum near the confluence of the Blue and White Nile rivers. Sinead, our second daughter, was born in Jeddah.
I helped set up coral conservation projects in the Red Sea and Seychelles. I also started writing books around that time. Bumping into a US businessman outside the Alcock and Brown Hotel led to us moving to Greece to work for an international mariculture company. It was 1984 when we finally returned to Connemara, where our third daughter, Megan, was born.
Underwater filming for BBC's Horizon led to work on the Academy-nominated Nightlife. More film projects came out of my books, including Tides of War and Arabia: Sand, Sea and Sky. We set up companies for book and film production, with real and remote workstations in the UAE and Clifden.
Since retirement, I've been challenged by Parkinson's and heart surgery. But I've also discovered what can be achieved with carers and family.
At present, I'm producing a film about Sean Crowley, who rowed the Atlantic in 1988. I find inspiration in the lives of such people who push themselves to the limit.
Paula
Right now I'm sitting at my kitchen table looking out over Clifden Bay, the sea unusually calm, the sun shining on the white beaches of Errislannan. Our garden is showing the first signs of spring and it's time to prepare the ground for planting.
I was born in Connemara and lived here much of my childhood, enjoying the freedom such a spectacular environment entailed. Some of my best memories are accompanying my father, the local GP, to Inishbofin. We both shared a love of the sea.
But I was eager to experience more than Clifden in the 1960s could offer. Having met Pete while studying Zoology in Galway, we married in 1973 and I joined him in Port Sudan on the Red Sea, learning to dive and exploring some of the most pristine coral reefs in the world. This was the beginning of a life of travel and adventure, some of the time living abroad, mainly the Middle East but also Greece, which was a highlight.
I studied International Humanitarian Law (IHL) on our return from Greece. The subject interested me very much, particularly protection of civilians in armed conflict. I lectured part-time at NUIG and assisted the Red Cross in disseminating IHL. I was also working on publishing projects with Pete. I couldn't continue academia when we set up our publishing company, but it did allow me to pursue my interests in research, writing, and editing.
It was great we could run our publishing interests from Clifden before branching out into film-making and other creative pursuits. And we were so fortunate to raise three daughters in Connemara, even though two of them were born in the Middle East.
Sailing its coast, visiting its many islands, has been a wonderful way to appreciate Connemara in all its splendour, as has hiking the breathtaking, ever-changing wilderness of the Twelve Bens and Maamturks. A balm for the soul.