A New LifeVincent Hyland tells Lorna Siggins about a life which has long held a fascination with the sea
Divers, by their very nature, like to explore the depths and return safely to the surface. For Vincent Hyland (44), a long-held passion for that activity has become a metaphor for his life's map over the past few years.
It is a map that has been characterised by "highs" and "lows" - the compass needle swinging from startling success to more challenging periods in his career. Throughout, the route has been characterised by a spirit of adventure, as he has moved from geologist on North Sea rigs to surfing on the dotcom wave to recreating himself as a wildlife photographer, film-maker and artist.
Born in Dublin as one of a family of three, Hyland was brought up in Palmerstown. His late father, Vincent Snr, was a Liberties native who worked as a mechanic in the Garda Síochána, and his mother, Imelda, used to cater for Anco trainees lodging at their family home.
He attended secondary school at King's Hospital, and registered for marine biology at NUI, Galway. As a young boy, he had taken up diving through his dad's involvement with the Garda diving club. He and his cousin, Patrick Kavanagh, used to spend summers in Kerry with his dad, and much of that time was in the water.
However, his experience of the marine biology course at university was limited to lecture halls - "there was very little field work" - and so he switched to geology and maths in second year. On qualifying, he was hired to work on a North Sea exploration rig, and returned home to take up a post as a computer programmer with Geological Survey of Ireland (GSI).
At the age of just 25, Hyland tried to commit suicide. "I had been abused by a neighbour as a child, and didn't tell my parents until I was 24," he says. Both parents were very supportive and he went for counselling.
"I think it was a 13-week stint, and I remember clearly that I woke up one morning on the 12th week and felt as if a huge cloud had lifted from me.
"I had always wanted to be a painter and film-maker, since those days in Kerry, and probably should have gone to art school. I vowed then that I would start to develop my artistic skills."
However, that didn't happen immediately - or even the following year. There were some very lucrative distractions on the way. With his programming skills acquired through GSI, he and colleague John Coleman set up the successful mapping company, La Tene Maps.
They also teamed up to work on desktop publishing and electronic design. The first map - on Ireland's fishing resources - was commissioned by Carrolls, the tobacco company, which had invested in aquaculture.
The business partnership lasted for over three years, and then Hyland applied for a job in Microsoft. His brief was to establish its electronic publishing division in Ireland in tandem with a division in the US. "I was sent to lots of technology conferences, I set up four departments in Microsoft up to about 1995, and they then decided to outsource their publishing and testing divisions and I became their first publishing international business manager.
"I'd begun on a fairly basic salary and I didn't know what stock options were when they were handed to me. But in my mid-30s I had become a paper millionaire, and could have retired at the age of 38 with 12 years of experience in multimedia and web development. Instead, I made a couple of bad investments."
In 1999, while still with Microsoft, he began publishing an environmental magazine, Wild Ireland, on the internet. He left the company the following year to focus on and invest in the magazine, which he began to print. He also became involved in a project to film and photograph a story about nesting jackdaws.
The result was Jackie and Daw, which was broadcast on RTÉ's Mooney Goes Wild. "It became one of the most successful home-produced wildlife documentaries, and helped to raise the magazine's profile," he says.
"We tried to enlist the support of the Department of Education to market the magazine through schools, but found we got a better response in the North.
"It became a struggle to keep the magazine going, and then there was a bit of a falling-out with RTÉ over a second series of Jackie and Daw. The budget offered wasn't realistic and so I approached UTV."
He planned and led an expedition to Antarctica, and returned to an uncertain future. "The dotcom bubble had burst, I lost two-thirds of my wealth and the magazine, and ended up with a large tax liability," he says.
At this stage he and his wife had two teenage sons. The marriage collapsed, and he moved to Kerry where he says he "hid" for six months and survived on bar work. "I re-emerged and made a decision to fulfil that wish to be a marine artist and photographer."
Galway Atlantaquaria has hired him during successive national science weeks to give workshops for children, and he and his cousin Patrick spent two years working on a DVD entitled Atlantic Kerry Offshore. Part of it was filmed in the Galapagos Islands, while the Kerry scenes extend from Kenmare to Ballinskelligs, Finian's and Dingle bays, and the Skellig islands.
Hyland is preparing a DVD on Jackie and Daw, and has received a number of commissions for paintings. "I think my experience of life, including the low points when I was in my mid-20s, taught me that I could start all over again. And keep doing so if I had to," he says.
"It will be a few years before I am back on my feet financially, but I am much happier now - even if it has taken me this long to find that place."
Atlantic Kerry Offshore is available from website address www.vincenthyland.com