Colm O'Regan: Looking out for my namesakes... they’re still making O’Regans but Colms are on the wane
Comedian and Irish Examiner columnist Colm O'Regan pictured in Cork. Pic: Denis Minihane.
Every so often you will be asked a question that stops you in your tracks. One that makes you wonder 'what am I doing with my life?... have I made the right choices?'.
Yesterday I wasn’t asked one of those. The question “Are you the Colm O’Regan who wrote ?" did not shake me.
Not because I feel bad about throwing away my education. I do. It’s just that it has been asked many times of me now in the last few years. If not that exact question then many other similar ones.
It might be “Are you the Colm O’Regan who wrote ?" or “Are you the Colm O’Regan who wrote the ".
It's an automated email from an academic website which thinks I’m THAT Colm O’Regan. I don’t update to let them know I’m not. I want to keep receiving the emails. I want to know what the other guy is up to. It gives me a window into the smart things My Kind are capable of.
I love the phrasing of it. Even though it’s an American website, it’s very Irish. I imagine it saying 'c'meretome, would you be the same Colm O’Regan who…'.
I think a lot about this other man and what he is contributing.
When he was researching nanodots in 2013, I was trying to figure out scenarios for .
My work lost like tears in the rain, his work in semi-conductors building today and tomorrow’s world.
There is still a thrill at seeing other Colm O’Regans in the wild. I feel an affinity. There’s not as many of us these days.
They’re still making O’Regans but Colms are on the wane. Not helped by being pushed out of our habitats by Calum, or constantly mispronounced as Colin, Cullen, or Colon (always a pain in the hole when I hear that), and ignored by Met Office storms lists.
We’re at the vintage now where we contain a higher-than-average proportion of Leeds United, Nottingham Forest, and Queens Park Rangers supporters, people who remember hand-me-downs and 8p Taytos.
We are more likely to be dissident Republicans or emeritus professors than TikTok influencers.
For anyone naming their babies Colm, you are to be lauded. Keeping the old traditions alive and this will one day lead to a new generation of Colms, proudly investigating the next step in the surface roughness of vertically oriented ferroelectric SbSi nanorods, their names living on in antimony. (That’s a semi-conductor pun in case the other CO’R ever reads this)
Speaking of who, I’m always on the lookout for my other CO’Rs. I wonder did they, like me, try and make a log of their initials — was it the same as mine? Did they spell it backwards to see if it meant anything 'negaR O’mloC'? What did they do with the middle name? To the best of my knowledge, I am the only CO’R in the world with my middle name. It will remain hidden like Rumpelstiltskin's name (it’s not Rumpelstiltskin)
If it’s not semi-conductors, it’s full conductors. There’s a fella conducting on the musical in the West End in London. He’s the most famous. We’re all proud of him. That’s a big deal.
If he ever feels that maybe he hasn’t done enough in the Vapor-Liquid Propagated Ge Nanowires space, he has done plenty. LinkedIn has only eight of us. All looking fairly useful.
Will we all assemble one day to take on the mission. I’ll do the jokes because I’m the Colm O’Regan who can’t do anything else.
Who’s your favourite namesake? Are you that person for others?
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