Dr Venkatesh Kannan found himself living and working in Ireland “by complete chance”. He had been reading some academic articles and contacted one of the authors, who would later become his supervisor in Dublin City University (DCU).
“He told me about a position coming up, so I dropped my CV in and things just worked out. I moved to Glasnevin pretty quickly and began work in DCU,” he says. Before moving here, Kannan knew very little about Ireland.
"I knew of it but not as much as other countries in Europe. The first time I came to know of Dublin was from a movie, and not even one of the really famous ones. It was The Medallion with Jackie Chan. "
“Visually, Dublin seemed very different from other parts of Europe, and it made me curious at the time. But it was happenstance that I ended up here.”
Originally from the city of Chennai in eastern India, Kannan went to university in his hometown to study computer science.
“I was born and brought up there. And unlike many of my other friends, while I was schooling and going to university in India, I never lived in any other city. That was the only city I knew then.”
“I had my first home away from home in Hamburg for my postgraduate,” he says.
Kannan lived in the German city for three years and, after that, continued “moving west”. Following his master’s degree, he moved to Eindhoven for 2½ years before returning to India for a short break. After that he came to Dublin in 2012, a city which he says has been “very accommodating” for the past 10 years.
“The people here are what make it. People might go to France or Germany for cuisine and style and that sort of thing. But in Ireland it’s the people,” he says. In recent years, he has not had the opportunity to travel throughout Ireland as much as he used to, “because of the pandemic, and because work is busier compared to those early days.
“But at the start, I used to rent a car every weekend and just go to one of the counties and drive around. I loved the more untouched places outside Dublin, like the Gap of Dunloe and the Burren. The scenes and being by yourself for hours here is great,” he says. Something about those days reminded him of home.
“I think maybe it’s because when I go home it’s like a detox. The people are very untouched at home and there are similarities in rural parts of Ireland. I’d run into people here — farmers or people at local shops, and anyone would stop and talk to you. People here are really open and friendly. You realise it’s all just people, whether you’re from Chennai or Dublin.”
Knowing the language “really helps”, as English had been “almost a second language growing up”. He also speaks German as well as five of the 22 official languages spoken in India.
“There is less of a barrier here for me than in other European places,” he says. Some years ago, while living in Dublin, Kannan was introduced to his now wife Sowmiya Doraiappan through mutual family friends. The couple both come from an engineering background, though they are in different professions now.
“I would visit her in India, and it just evolved, and 2½ years later we got married. That was four years ago now.”
In 2019, just under a year before the Covid-19 pandemic began, Kannan’s wife moved to Ireland.
“She had some time to see some of Ireland before the lockdown phase. We had a very good summer that year. But she hasn’t been back to India since, which is hard for her.”
The couple lived near Finglas and, during several lockdowns, came to know "almost every person in the community".
"We saw the newborns and toddlers grow, especially in lockdown. It was hard for us to move from there. We just moved to Clongriffin in May. We haven't even unpacked most of the boxes yet."
After many years studying and working in academia, Kannan now works for the Irish Centre for High-Performance Computing (ICHEC) as a technical manager, making him the second most senior person in the organisation.
“I’ve really grown into this role. I started as a researcher, right after my PhD. I was happily working in a corner on a black screen with code like in the matrix or something,” he jokes.
“I’ve had rapid professional growth there. I’ve learned a lot and the organisation has a very diverse background with people coming from 12 or 13 different nationalities with just 45 employees. The place is so accommodating, so I don’t have a reason to move now.”
He has also recently been appointed academic associate at the Tyndall National Institute in University College Cork, a research centre in information and communications technology. If he had his time again, though, he might have been a cook.
“I love cooking. But I’m vegetarian by upbringing and I didn’t know if I would be able to do that job without having to cook meat. If I knew that at the time, I probably would have made that decision. But I took a more traditional path.”
With a population of 1.4 billion, India has “very diverse cuisines in different regions and cultural backgrounds,” he says. Kannan “never expected” to remain in Ireland for so long.
“This is the longest I’ve stayed anywhere except my hometown. I love it here. But I think Ireland will be the last stop before I eventually return home someday,” he says.
“We will go back to Chennai eventually because...our parents are very elderly. I had to visit my parents once recently for a medical emergency so it will be important to just be with them and sort of go back to our roots. I will be able to reminisce fondly on my time in Dublin.”
But “home” means something different now, he says. “I don’t even recognise my hometown any more. My visual references are very narrow streets and very early days hanging out with friends in the street. Chennai now is more modernised and there are more people.”
“For now, at least, I’m still in the middle of experiencing and enjoying time in Ireland.”
