Who am I???

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24 March 2000 - Church of Ireland Parishes and Organisations Online

Photo gallery.  Includes some very embarassing pictures!

My university essays and marks!

My amateur radio pages.

The Connor Diocesan Commitment to Reconciliation

See my e-mail, telephone and snail-mail contact details.

Or just scroll down for more information about me!

NB! NB! NB! - Northern Ireland phone numbers are changing - visit http://www.numberchange.org

I am Gerry Lynch. I was born on 28 July 1977.

As you may have guessed from my address, I am a radio ham, with the callsign GI0RTN. I can send shortwave radio signals anywhere in the world. I particularly enjoy high speed morse code (CW). I was first licenced aged 14, with a full class A licence. I am active on HF (Shortwave) and particularly enjoy DXing (trying to contact new countries). I am just about to make my first ever DX Century Club submission. I am applying for DXCC, all band, CW only. (NB - I have been applying for it for most of the past year and have yet to be bothered sending cards to the USA - now with 136 confirmed and about 170 worked) Have a look at my ham radio page, and my list of confirmed countries. I am a member of the Bangor and District Amateur Radio Society - GI3XRQ, depite the fact that I live in Belfast, largely due to the efforts of Keith Stevenson, GI0SSA.

I am due to sit my last exam on May 29, and graduate on July 5.

I applied for the 'Fast Stream' scheme, which is where the British Civil Service recruits the sort of bright young graduates who are expected to fill senior posts in a few decades time. . I have passed all three stages and this means I will get a job next year! However, my first choice is for the Diplomatic Service, which would be kind of a dream job - no Graham Greene jokes please! They are a bit more over-subscribed than the regular Civil Service so I will have to wait until they finish interviewing in a few weeks time whether I have managed to get in there or will be going to an ordinary Civil Service department.

I am an active member of the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland. I have been election agent in North Belfast at every election since the Forum elections in 1996. We have had a lot of elections in Northern Ireland since then. I really enjoy doing this, despite the fact it is an enormous drain on my time and energy. My greatest triumph was in May 1997, when I was election agent in the Castle and Oldpark wards in the Belfast City Council elections. Our campaign in Castle gave Alliance the balance of power between Nationalists and Unionists in Belfast City Hall. I am rather proud of that. I am chairperson of North Belfast Alliance.

I have also now got a part-time job, working for David Ford, a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly for South Antrim, as a caseworker in the Glengormley/Carnmoney area. This has been a bit unsettling as our government seems to come and go with strange alacrity.

I am a bit obsessed with politics. Sorry about that I can't help it! I'll have to get used to being apolitical when I go off to be a Civil Servant.

I also like Rugby (Malone and Ulster fan), Baseball (Cleveland Indians fan), Soccer (Everton and Cliftonville fan) and American Football Cleveland Browns fan).  I also watch any decent Gaelic football matches that are on, but supporting Antrim is an even more futile pastime than following most other teams I support.  Rugby is my favourite, with perhaps surprisingly baseball coming next.

I like music of many kinds, especially the Pixies, the Stone Roses and most opera and church music. At the moment I'm well into Hendrix at the moment. I especially like many Victorian Anglican church composers - especially Stainer. 'God so loved the world' from The Crucifixion sends me. Evening Hymn by Balfour-Gardiner also kicks total ass. That hymn got me through my exams last summer - every time I was about to smash the computer to bits I just stuck it on the CD and chilled for a wee minute and I was grand!

I also love the Dies Irae - Day of Wrath - from Verdi's Requiem Mass - it's well hard!

I am a parishioner of St.George's Anglican Church on High Street - the 'highest' Church of Ireland church in Belfast. I waste a large amount of time posting to the Ireland Anglican Forum mailing list. I am a member of Affirming Catholicism Ireland. I have compiled a list of Church of Ireland Parishes and Organisations on the Web.

In November 1997 I was at the Diocese of Connor Young Adults' Forum. I have put a report on it here. Or you can have a look at the largest, and in many ways most segregated, Church of Ireland Diocese's Commitment to Reconciliation.

I was raised a Roman Catholic, and I was baptised and confirmed in St.Patrick's Catholic Church in Donegal Street, Belfast, near the City Centre. I still regard myself very much as Catholic, and partaking of the body and blood of Our Lord is particularly important to me. People find the idea of religious conversion very odd in Northern Ireland. I have to say I have no regrets about becoming an Anglican. There's more room to question and challenge, even in the conservative Church of Ireland. You can have Catholicism without being nasty to women and gay people and even without using the word 'error'. It's cool!
 

"You cannot claim to worship Jesus in the Tabernacle, if you do not pity Jesus in the slums. It is folly - it is madness - to suppose that you can worship Jesus in the Sacraments and Jesus on the throne of glory, when you are sweating him in the souls and bodies of his children." Bishop Frank Weston of Zanzibar at the 1923 Anglo-Catholic Congress

While travelling in England this summer, I visited a lot of nice Churches - I would recommend All Saints, Margaret Street to anyone in London and St. Mary Magdalene to anyone in Oxford (cool place is Oxford) though if you're there in term-time make sure to get to Magdalen College Chapel for a service or two.

I live off the New Lodge Road, a working class Catholic area in North Belfast with my parents.

My list of links: From the ridiculous to the sublime - it's all in here!

This page has been visited  times since 10th January 2000.  Between launch on 11th July 1997 and the beginning of January 2000, it was visited at least 2000 times, however due to regular failures in web counters it may have been many more!  Last updated 24th March 2000.

Design philosophy - frames are useless, they only clutter up the screen and exclude those with old computers unable to handle the later browsers - yes such people do exist. Under construction graphics are silly - all websites are under construction by definition. A website not under construction is usually dead and no longer useful. This site may not look as pretty as some, However, I hope it says more than most, which is at the end of the day more important. If I have used the work on anyone else without attribution, tell me and I will give credit or remove.