When younger he was a competent climber and has many 'first ascents' of Irish rock routes to his credit, besides at least nine first ascents of Arctic peaks in Greenland, as well as in Spitzbergen in the Svalbard group. About 20 years ago he discovered the sea.

David is now one of Ireland's highest qualified sea kayaking leaders / instructors.

His specific passion within the sport of sea kayaking is Irish islands and for instance he has paddled out to and sometimes camped overnight on the Fastnet, the Great Skellig, the Arans, Tory Island, and even Scotland (Donaghadee to Portpatrick, and back).

In recent years he has been kayaking abroad as well as among domestic Irish islands. Recent objectives included Cape Farewell 2004 and Upernavik Isfjord 2007 (both Greenland), the Strait of Gibraltar 2007, and (Spain)Cape Horn 2008 (Chile).

He has L5 personal proficiency, L4 sea instructorship, L3 instructorship and REC3 Wilderness First Aid.

In 1990 he was a founder member of, and he led, the Irish Sea Kayaking Association from 1995 to 2004

He retired from that position purposefully to devote his time to publishing 'Oileáin', - A Guide to the Irish Islands, published in 2004 under ISBN 0-9531956-9-4. At time of publication this book dealt with 313 Irish islands, but the work goes on, and nowadays there are 529 islands published in soft copy on the www at www.oileain.org. David's free time is divided between tennis to keep fit, kayaking to keep sane, and family. He is married to Sheila and they have four grown up children Justin, Daire, Sarah and Orla, most of whom are occasionally to be found helping out at 109 Ranelagh