Back to the Future: Reflections on Rural Life, Recession and Renewal over Thirty Years of Journalism
by Ciaran Mullooly
(Media People Ireland, €12)
RTÉ’s Midlands correspondent gives powerful expression to the concerns of the people of the region in a collection of articles which were first published during the depths of the recent recession. He asks where the jobs of the future will come from. Two State companies, the ESB and Bord na Mona, who once provided many reliable, well-paid positions, no longer have the presence they once had.
The extraction of peat – an important local industry – will end by 2030. Mullooly doubts whether wind farms will prove to be an economic boon, arguing that wind energy seems to create more controversy than it does jobs.
But a man who has been active in community development for decades is naturally given to optimism. He draws great inspiration from the painstaking restoration of St Mel’s Cathedral in Longford after its destruction by fire on Christmas Day 2009.
People already demoralised by recession – unemployment was running at 20% in Longford – wept on camera as he interviewed them before the ruins of a building that had been central to the life of the town. Mullooly, like the shocked people he spoke to, thought back to visits to St Mel’s in happier times, recalling his father bringing him there for Confession on Christmas Eve.
Craftmanship
Restoring the cathedral took five years, demanded great skill and craftsmanship, and cost the Archdiocese of Ardagh and Clonmacnois €30million. Mullooly is fascinating on the details of the great project, noting for example that the construction of the columns supporting the new structure required almost 700 tonnes of blue limestone.
While it was underway, the restoration of St Mel’s was the largest such project in Europe. It helped revive a struggling town. The new building, so the local consensus goes, is much less austere than the old one.
For Catholics in Longford and beyond, appalled as they are at the extent of clerical abuse of children, St Mel’s has been a source of great uplift. Mullooly hopes that the restored cathedral, a symbol of spiritual and physical renewal, will have the effect of inspiring the many people in the Midlands, and rural Ireland in general, who fear for the future of their communities.
