Mullooly sets pulses racing at Longford launch of new book ‘The Future is Now’

It was the third publication in an anthology of books which was arguably the most challenging to write for a man who witnessed at first hand the economic devastation brought about by the closure of ESB's Lough Ree Power Station.

The former Midlands Correspondent with the State broadcaster understandably cut a proud and excitable figure as interested observers from across the county and beyond filled Longford's county library to virtual capacity.

Following an insightful and at times, comical address by author and playwright Michael Harding, who launched the book, it was over to the man at the centre of last Saturday's grand unveiling to explain the rationale behind its title.

In typical Mullooly style, the father of two had the crowd in fits of stuttering laughter as he told of how a s0-called “wag” had approached him in his former place of work barely 24 hours previously to press him on that very fact.

“It has puzzled quite a few people in the last few weeks and as one wag put it to me yesterday as I left my old work place in Donnybrook after a radio interview – it also tends to cause numerous problems for any future title should I choose to write a fourth book,” he quipped.

The mere mention of a fourth possible foray into the literary arts drew more than a few intrigued glances from the floor as the south Longford man switched his focus to the book's main, overriding theme.

“In the last ten years of my work with RTE the word future was thrown around a lot – especially in the context of the closure of the midlands bogs for peat harvesting, the shutting of the power stations and the move to decarbonisation.

“Despite the myth held by some greener than green folk, we always knew this day would come. We are not fools – we have seen the storms and the floods, learned about the ozone later and global warming.”

Mullooly, to those who know him best, has always been a straight talker.

That genial and candid persona is one that has served him well and one that has endeared him to a new audience he now enjoys as a Community Development and Social Enterprise Worker with the Roscommon LEADER Partnership.

Aside from that jovial disposition is a man who believes passionately in rural Ireland and more specifically community life in his native south Longford stronghold.

Those convictions were ones which were came in for examination on December 18, 2020, the day Lanesboro's Lough Ree Power Station closed its doors for the last time.

“We always knew the day would arrive when digging out the brown fields of gold and burning peat in a boiler at huge temperatures would never be good for the environment or acceptable in the treacherous climate change times in which we live,” he said.

“But throughout that period of ten years we still talked of a future – ten to 15 years away – when we would change our lives, move away from the turf and the peat , a future when we would look for jobs in different industries and use what was described to us daily as the period of Just Transition to get ready for it.

“Instead of ten years of transition the workers and their families got ten months to refocus their lives and many of them were in their 50d and 60s– and this book looks at the many ways in which we must all look at ways to rebuild our midlands economy and create sustainable employment that will keep our young people here at least if they choose to do so.”

Based on Mullooly's own unique take on south Longford's transition, just or otherwise, its hoped many of those same set of youngsters will take up that baton and bring a new, brighter future to the idyllic surrounds of south Longford.