As well as being typically Irish, David is hard-working and family-oriented. While his boy Brendan is barely three years old, David can’t help but imagine Father Ted’s being handed proudly into his care a couple of decades from now. Realistically, David hopes Brendan will follow his own passions in life, exactly as he himself has done. Although David is proud of his dad, “a real gentleman”, and enjoyed working with him in his cash-register company while in his teens, he had no desire to take over the family business and acknowledges “Father Ted’s & Son” is equally unlikely. David’s mother worked with computers, initially with Wang and then later as a contractor with the Ford Motor Company, Henry Ford’s father being a proud Irish man from Cork. David’s parents modelled that success always requires hard work.

The pub was named in a nod to the acclaimed Irish-written and British-produced sitcom which saw the title character and 2 other priests banished to a fictional island parish as a result of past actions. The three series of Father Ted are acknowledged as a close second to Fawlty Towers as the greatest British sitcom. While it provoked much laughter, Father Ted also dealt with some of life’s deeper themes. David has had the pleasure of meeting several cast members and one has actually performed a comedy routine in the pub on several occasions.

As a child, dealing with the result of your parents’ divorce can be difficult, but David doesn’t recall that as an issue for him. Both his parents had children from other relationships and that was no hardship for young David, who was interested in, and skilled at, many sports including football, rugby, basketball and hurling, a 3,000-year-old, high-speed Irish field sport played with a wooden stick and a small ball. Had David been prepared to commit to a single sport, he could have attracted at least a part-scholarship at a prestigious private school, such was his natural talent. With his half-brothers and step-brothers, David’s extended family encompassed nine boys of the same generation, living not far from each other, enough for a rough game of all these sports, or to get up to some generally harmless shenanigans. David earned himself the nickname of “Grandad”, since he was the responsible one, the voice of reason, despite also being the family jokester. Now, with his busy life, David’s sport is generally limited to his regular golf day where he gets to joke around with his golfing buddies.

When David was 16, a fire and explosion at a neighbouring property led to David’s home also being burnt to the ground. This was a lesson in resilience as David learnt that as long as no lives were lost, anything else is immaterial. David’s dog, Scruffy, a West Highland terrier he had received as a Christmas present at the age of 12, was saved, his white coat blackened with soot. The adults had managed to retrieve precious photos, while David had salvaged his ticket to the disco the following week. To this day, David is a dog lover, Father Ted’s wall adorned by a painting by local artist, Joe or งง (Ngong), depicting one of David’s dogs, Lucky.

As soon as he graduated high school at 18, David was keen to be off and exploring both his own independence and the world outside Cork. Taking advantage of the opportunity to use his facility with German in a context outside the classroom, David took a job in Vienna, Austria’s capital. The plan was to catch up with a girl from Vienna he’d met some time before, the trip extending to two years before David was ready to return to Ireland and resume his college education. David studied multimedia and graphic design before settling on his speciality, sound engineering. While a career in sound engineering, working with a wide variety of stage performances might sound exciting, in reality David found it somewhat soul-destroying, repetitive work which limited the social life he should have been enjoying as a young man. The night work attracted better pay but had a definite downside.

David’s first big job outside the family business was with the Opera House in Cork. It was the first of a series of stepping stones which opened up a career in the entertainment industry for David. Working in live music venues led to David becoming a promoter in his own right, creating events by engaging US artists and hiring venues for them to play. It engaged David’s entrepreneurial skills while not requiring too large a capital investment as he had already secured the trust of venue operators.

It was shortly after the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004 that David first encountered Hua Hin. With an Irish girlfriend, he was on his way to Australia to take a job at the State Theatre in Sydney and had planned a short stop in Hua Hin to refresh his energies. The pair were able to stay in a home owned by her family and a quick rest stop turned into a three-month stay, David impressed not only by the balmy weather but also by the diversity he found in the local community. The one thing that was missing, and still is, all these years later, is a decently large entertainment centre to attract international acts. Hua Hin’s arts scene is still not meeting its potential.

David embraced new challenges as they arose and worked in many countries as sound engineer, DJ and eventually as venue manager, firstly in Indonesia and then back in Thailand, in Ko Samui. In 2011, David jumped at the chance to return to Hua Hin and has been a resident ever since. By 2015, David was confident that his more than a decade’s worth of experience in the industry was sufficient for him to open his own venue, Father Ted’s, which he did with several investment partners. Father Ted’s is a pub, an eatery, and a live-music venue, as well as regularly hosting comedians from Bangkok or further afield. It has broad community appeal, due in part to its friendly, well-trained group of 22 full-time staff. David is still using his skills in graphics and multimedia to design posters for events to be hosted at Father Ted’s.

Despite David’s expertise in management, nothing prepared him for the ravages of the Covid-19 pandemic which brought particular difficulties for places where people congregate. Father Ted’s survived while many businesses crumbled, but not without sacrifices and support from David’s family. Lockdown saw David sharing his bedroom for nearly six months with 20 kegs of Guinness kept fresh in air-conditioned comfort lest it spoil. David’s investors wanted out as there was no return on their money. Luckily a family member was able to provide a short-term loan to help Father Ted’s keep its head above water. Now, more than a decade old, Father Ted’s continues to thrive and is one of David’s proudest achievements.

Yet, it remains second to fatherhood, which hasn’t been simple for David either. His relationship with his son’s mother ended more than a year ago and since then David has been a single parent. David is fortunate his mother and her husband followed his lifestyle choice and decided to move to Hua Hin upon their retirement. He knows his life would be so much more difficult without his mother’s attentive and loving help with his child, who calls her Mum, as does David!  According to David, the world today is very different to the world he perceived as a child, with parents experiencing more fear and so allowing their children less freedom. Knowing how important his extended group of siblings was to him as a boy, David works hard and regularly on maintaining Brendan’s relationship with his half-sister, now aged 8, his ex-partner’s child from a previous relationship, who lived with David from the age of around four. It is a measure of his love and compassion that David has more frequent contact with this young Thai girl than does her biological mother. When David makes a commitment, whether it be to family, friends or staff, he will do whatever it takes to honour it. This is David’s greatest character strength.

As a result of this, David admits he takes things to heart and doesn’t respond well to unjust criticism. Letting things go doesn’t come easy, with David having to consciously remember to take a few deep breaths before responding, rather than reacting with a metaphorical take-down punch, to an unwarranted negative online review, for example.

David remains a committed learner. He returned to study the history of art at university as a mature-aged student. David is keen to improve his Thai language via immersion in the local community and its culture, a necessity for raising a well-adjusted bi-racial child. He wants to be truly able to access the Thai mindset. David professes to only having an expired bucket list, though he admits to looking forward to further travel when his son is a bit older, hoping to see things afresh through Brendan’s eyes.

Optimistic for the future, David is hopeful that Father Ted’s will have continued success and that Brendan and his half-sister will grow up happy and healthy. David has surprised even himself by his ability to undertake new challenges such as participating in a cricket tournament for the first time in his 40s. He is thankful for being able to live a sustainable life in Thailand and that his mother kept him on the right path as a young man, though she failed to stop him taking up smoking, a decision he now regrets, in terms of its potential consequences for his health.  David cites Michael D. Higgins, former Irish President from 2011 to 2025 as the living person he most admires. A poet and broadcaster as well as politician, under the banner of Irish reconciliation, Higgins championed justice, social equality and inclusion, anti-sectarianism and antiracism. Like Higgins, David aims to be part of creating a better world.

David’s personal and business success has a firm foundation. He is a builder of community with a wide range of interests who engages people with his ability as a story-teller. Grab a pint, join him for his favourite T-bone with chips and it’s “sláinte krub”.