When Catherine Walshe's grandchildren come to visit they are more likely to find her poring over her computer than polishing the silver or watching telly. Since becoming a self-taught cyber surfer in her retirement Catherine has made friends all over the world through on-line chat rooms, she keeps in touch with her son in the US by e-mail and she has recently designed and developed her own website. (http://homepage.eircom.net/(tilde)katcha)
A mother of five who was widowed in her early 30s, Walshe worked for many years with Cork County Council as an assistant county engineer. She qualified in 1949 when women in her profession were thin on the ground and worked on the development of the Naas and Bray dual carriageways before moving to Cork in 1964 where she became responsible for traffic within the county.
When her eldest son was leaving Cork in the late 80s to work for Apple in California he left her a computer and suggested she could use it to keep in touch. Walshe was far from enthusiastic about the idea and like most people unfamiliar with computers she was afraid to even turn it on. By chance she picked up the manual and found herself captivated by the possibilities unfolding before her. She mastered the machine step by step and now spends up to six hours a day surfing the net, writing articles, updating her website and chatting to her close circle of cyber pals.
"The computer I started on used to keep crashing so I got a loan from the credit union and bought an iMac and it's brilliant," she says. "I think there will be tremendous opportunities for older people to enrich their lives when Internet TV becomes widely available. Loneliness and feeling alone go with getting older and it's worse for those who can't get out. With the Internet they can sit in their armchair and make friends all over the world," she says.
Walshe recently had the holiday of a lifetime when she toured the US and visited her cyber friends. "The Internet has done so much for the quality of my life and I know it has done the same for many, many other seniors. The best part is that no one sees you so you can sit there in your nightie - or without your hearing aid or your teeth - and it doesn't matter a bit!"
