noel.slevin@donegalonsunday.com

Dave Gallagher from Glenfin, who nowadays resides in Dublin, has decided to call it a day from his working life. He retired this week as Business Development Director with the well known Donegal owned firm of KN Network Services.

Dave, a larger than life character and affectionately known as ‘Dave the Suit’, a name well earned from his love of wearing that particular item of apparel, is very well known all over the country and abroad, particularly for his love of the Irish International soccer team, Manchester United, Glasgow Celtic, his beloved Donegal GAA team and Finn Harps.

His face is also very familiar at all the big race meetings in Ireland and abroad and he has travelled literally thousands of miles to support his idols in all of the above mentioned sports.

A regular visitor to his native Glenfin where his brother, Michael, the famous weather forecaster and postman lives, Dave is well known on the Donegal and Dublin social scene and is noted for his love of a good night out. He has also been known to grace the numerous golf courses of this country and along with a few friends, always makes the trip to Ballybofey by helicopter when the Donegal team are playing in the championship.

Reflecting on his working life, which has spanned 40 years this week, Dave said he enjoyed every minute of his career and his story is, in reality, one a man who has made a great success of his life from humble beginnings.

After completing his primary education at his local school in Glenfin, Dave then attended Stranorlar Vocational school.

Like many of his contemporaries at the time he then emigrated, going to Leeds in Yorkshire in 1968 at the age of eighteen. He joined a well known Irish Company called John Murphy and Sons and started off on the pick and shovel and worked as a labourer.

However, unlike a lot of his countrymen, Dave was not content to do hard labour for all of his life and in 1970 he got promoted to foreman and went to night collage to study Civil Engineering and Communications.

From 1971 to 1978 he gained steady promotion and eventually was site agent with the company, travelling and managing various projects all over England with Murphys.

In 1980 Dave returned to Dublin and joined a company called Murray Telecommunication as Operation Manager, to oversee the various Telecom projects in the whole of Ireland.

In 1986 he spent six months in Boston in the United States to managed a fibre optic project in that city with Murray Telecommunications

From 1987 to 1994 he was instrumental in setting up head offices in Luton Bedfordshire with Murray Telecommunications as head of Operations to carry out major contracts for British Telecom throughout the England, Wales and Scotland.

In 1990 Dave spent five months overseeing the installation of a fibre network project the Island of St.