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 This site is rated with ICRA as suitable for all |
Frequently Asked Questions
What got you started on
this website?
Are you getting any financial reward /
subsidy for this site?
What's with giving the weekday on which every date in your site
falls? Is this an Irish thing?
Some of your photos are
larger than others? Do you make distinctions?
Why do
some photos show scenery and others don't?
Like many people, I was vaguely aware of these distractions on the roadside but it was a long time before I got around to stopping and reading the details on my first memorial. I took a photo which kept me reminded of the names and dates. This encouraged me to compare other memorials that I came across. I had a handful of photographs in a short time and the best way I could put them to service for the benefit of others was to make a website.
Are you getting any financial reward / subsidy for this site?
I avoid advertising and brand promotion even to the extent of airbrushing billboards and commercial logos out of the background of photos where necessary. I will not refer to locations by ther proximity to any commercial enterprise, pub, hotel, factory, even if they are nationally-recognised landmarks beause I hate product-placement or anything which could be mistaken for it. I get frequent requests from monumnetal sculptures, florists and photographers to feature their paid banners but I don't want to profit from tragedy and the sorrow of others. I don't need financial support because the ongoing costs are very low. The annual cost of the www.irishroadside.com domain name and the webhosting service is only about the same as the cost of a meal in a restaurant and is not really that great considering I don't have any other hobby.
As far as the cost of travel is concerned, this is my holiday (vacation) budget because I never have a desire to travel anywhere except throughout the most beautiful country in the world and anyway Ireland is such a small country that one can travel from the east coast to the west coast and back in a long afternoon on one tankful of petrol. In the same amount of time one could do a return journey of almost half the length of the country from north to south.
What's with giving the weekday on which every date in your site falls? Is this an Irish thing?
No, it's not an Irish thing. This checking of the day of week of accidents, etc. (which is done with spreadsheet) started because I intended to research the details of each accident in the newspaper 'morgues' and give some information on the circumstances of each accident on the site. For this reason I was making sure to be armed with as much pertinent information as possible before begining the search. This was a good plan when I had only 20 sites or so found and never dreamt that I would find hundreds more; when I suddenly came upon a quick succession of dozens more I gave up the idea, even at that relatively early stage. However, a person can see that the very great majority of accidents happened on Fri, Sat, Sun, Mon. When you take into account that the 'Monday' accidents were probably 'coming home late Sunday night' accidents you see the reality of 'weekend carnage'.
Some of your photos are larger than others? Do you make distinctions?
I don't make any distinctions. Put it down to they way I have varied my style over a number of years. The larger photographs, in general, belong to the earlier pages uploaded to this site and to the most recent (2010+). In the early years (c. 1998) I wasn't as conscious of download speed since there was no broadband and everything loaded slowly anyway. Later, during most of the decade of 2000, the rest of the world raced ahead with broadband provision while Ireland was saddled with a monopoly telecoms provider which did not see the future coming at it. So, as the internet exploded, I became conscious of the need to help make the process as painless as possible for those who were on slow connections and I reduced all new photos as they appeared. 2010 and I finally have broadband thanks to mobile phone (cellphone) providers who stepped in to fill the gap and I have made the new photos bigger (scaled to 450 pixels wide) in the knowledge that they can be accessed without difficulty. The original files of all the photos on the site are very high-definition JPEGs and if any reader has a particular interest in some site(s) I would be happy to send copies of the original files.
You will also notice that I tend to make composite photos (good ole' Paint Shop Pro 7 to the rescue). This is also both to save server space and to speed page opening.
Why do some photos show scenery and others don't?
Again this has to do with the way the site has developed. At some stage I came to the conclusion that a mere close-up picture of a memorial was a bit boring. I also thought strangers might appreciate seeing 'everyday' scenes of Ireland because published photos tend to be confined to those of tourist traps like Lakes of Killarney or the Cliffs of Moher.
For instance, in Killarney, Park Road, you can see a Killarney street on a wet day!