Conal Tuohy
Conal Tuohy is the brother of leftist Brendan Tuohy and is a software developer from New Zealand. He was the lead developer at the New Zealand Electronic Text Centre from 2002–2008.[1][2]
Now lives in Brisbane.
Involvement with SUP
In August 23, 1986, Tuohy was elected as a member of the new youth group of the Soviet aligned Socialist Unity Party called Youth in Unity, along with Wayne Ruscoe and Sandy Rickard. In August 1987, Tuohy was elected as the National Coordinator of a new Youth League of the SUP. His task was for the collation and dissemination of material until the next meeting.
On August 7, 1989, an article by Tuohy appeared in the SUP newspaper, the Tribune, concerning the space race and the opportunities it presented for shared technology.[3]
In 1990, the Tribune carried an article of Tuohy's, headed "The Wellington Women's Health Collective: struggling on towards informed Choice".[4]
By March 12, 1990, Tuohy was on the Executive of the Wellington branch of the SUP.
On October 22, 1990, another of Tuohy's articles appeared in the Tribune, this time concerning the dud New Zealand referendum on extending the parliamentary term.[5]
On April 22, 1990, Tuohy had an article on the forum page of the Tribune headed "Socialism is already feasible" it read as follows: ""Our tasks now are to spread socialist ideas, and to develop socialised relations of production which better correspond to the new productive forces. State capitalist forms are a step in this direction, but socialist forms are a much better step in this drection, and this must be the basis of our propaganda."[6]
Assisting in production of Socialist Politics
In 1989, Tuohy was involved in the production of the Socialist Politics George Jackson documents. In 1989, he laid out the 3rd quarterly 1989 issue of Socialist Politics.
Supporting Sam Murray's thesis
Sam Murray, earned a PhD in 2001 (Anthropology) from Massey University.
"Terra Aquarius - A Marxist Ethnography of the Alternative Lifestyle in Nimbin." Supervisor Professor Jeff Sissons.
She thanked her Reddfish partners Brendan Tuohy, Conal Tuohy, Miriam Tuohy, Greg Ford, Harry Nowell, Spike Thomas. Ian Rotheram scanned photos for the thesis.[7]
Membership of SPA
In 1997, the ReddFish website carried a quote in whuch Tuohy identified himself as a member of the Gordon Watson branch of the Socialist Party of Aotearoa; the Wellington branch which is named after an ex-leader of the Communist Party of New Zealand.[8]
Visit to Cuba
In October 1999, Tuohy had an article published in SPA's paper called Red Flag, called "Impressions of Cuba", in which he wrote about a recent trip he and his partner had made there.[9]
Support for Cuba on WWW
In 2003, Tuohy was a member of Amigos de Cuba on the World Wide Web.
Computer skills in furtherance of socialism
According to a 1997 report on the ReddFish website, Tuohy has been working at ReddFish since 1988, as a consultant and (mostly) as a programmer. ReddFish is a computer consultancy and software company run as a socialist collective run by members of the Socialist Party of Aotearoa. Tuohy's brother Brendan, was a founding member of ReddFish in 1987. Tuohy notes that he spends most of his time in the Trades Hall in persuit of these tasks. He also adds: "Before I started at ReddFish I worked for a few years at the national office of the Public Service Association (the main public sector trade union in New Zealand) as a computing technician, gradually computerising the place.Before that I was working for Victoria University as a computing technician both for the School of Architecture and for the Department of Communications..."[10]
In 2002, he was working as a freelancer, involved with the New Zealand Electronic Text Centre.
In that same year, Tuohy, who was at this time living in Wellington, noted that "I've been using Cocoon for a couple of years, and I like it a lot.
I work part time at the New Zealand Electronic Text Centre which has a Cocoon-based website, and offers consultancy and text-processing services to local businesses, generally using Cocoon as a platform.
I also teach web publishing at a local Polytechnic and I do some other freelance consultancy work.
In around 2003, Tuohy was a Senior Developer for XPA Ltd. He is the Senior Programmer at the NZETC, a founder member of the eXensible Publishing Alliance (XPA). He has been responsible for developing the NZETC's Open Source XML repurposing system, based on Cocoon from Apache Tomcat. Tuohy consults widely for clients regarding document conversion and Cocoon implementation, and he also teaches "electronic publishing" in the well-regarded Diploma of Publishing course at Whitireia Community Polytechnic.