It was fun. Dating back to 1996 when "A Home Page with an Irish Flavour", the precursor to the Canadian Vindicator monthly e-zine, went online, one person's retirement years have been marked by the steady measurement of publication deadlines, first weekly, then monthly, twice interrupted by illness.

They have been happy years, filled with a cadenced sense of purpose.

Initially focused solely on matters dealing with Ireland, its history, its poetry, its story telling, its meaning to millions upon millions who make up the Irish diaspora found in many countries and on all continents, the original website attracted readers worldwide.

That was during the early days of Internet usage, when websites numbered in the millions, newspapers were taking their first steps into uncharted cyberspace, and the full potential of the Internet was slowly being discovered. Now search engines chart billions of websites and make their contents available to surfers at the tap of a keyboard.

Later the e-zine format was adopted, linking Ireland and Canada, a concept that attracted an astounding growth in readership as evidenced in the chart below by the numbers of hits, sessions, and pages downloaded.

Due to difficulties encountered with technical problems in ensuring regular monthly appearance, and sensing that age demands descent into a more placid existence, the decision has been made to suspend publication of the Canadian Vindicator e-zine, "and with the strivers leave the strife".

To all who found in it items of interest and expressed their appreciation through e-mails, our thanks; with those who, when reading its pages, found relatives in far-off lands, relatives sometimes lost for generations, we shared their pleasure; and in reviving memories of long-ago times, events, and places, we were amply rewarded when readers wrote of their own joy in remembering happy times.

It was fun.

To my daughters, Geraldine and Catherine, who helped in many ways throughout the last decade, and to my wife, Betty, I am sincerely grateful.

John Ward
Ottawa
February 2006.

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