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AUTHOR
Paul B McNulty is an Emeritus Professor of Biosystems Engineering at University College Dublin. After retirement, he applied his professional experience to writing historical novels and stage plays, influenced by the wild splendour of the West of Ireland. He is now developing a brief on climate change as it impacts on a fragile Mother Earth. Paul lives in Dublin with his wife, Treasa Ní Chonaola. They have three children, Dara, Nora and Meabh, and three grandchildren, Lily, Niam and Dara Óg.
INTRODUCTION
Paul Bernard McNulty was born on March 22, 1940 at the Mall
House, Tuam, Co Galway to Kathleen Mary McHugh of The Central Hotel, Tuam, Co Galway
and Thomas Bernard McNulty of 15 Warrington Place, Dublin 2. Having lived for four
years in nearby Mountbellew, my family moved to Carlow where my father worked as
a subagent in the Bank of Ireland. We returned west to Castlebar in 1948, following
my father’s promotion as agent. I grew up over the next nine years in the capital
town of County Mayo. These two western periods generated a love for the west of
Ireland which I have retained to the present.
After nine years in Castlebar, and now aged seventeen, I spent
the next four wasted years in the Bank of Ireland. Then, I broke my father’s heart
by leaving the bank and taking an engineering degree at University College Dublin,
1961-65. Intellectual liberation followed through this academic programme, bolstered
by a one year experience of the Irish food industry in Mallow and Fermoy. Travelling
west to the USA, I completed six wonderful years of postgraduate study at The Ohio
State University, Columbus and at MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, supplemented by
involvement in the anti-Vietnam War movement as well as the struggle for civil
rights in Northern Ireland.
Having returned home in 1972, I then enjoyed a successful thirty-three
year career in agricultural and biosystems engineering at University College Dublin
having been appointed to the chair of agricultural engineering in 1979. My experience
was enriched by the birth of a son and two daughters and an active interest in Irish
politics and sport.
My marriage to the love of my life, Treasa Ní Chonaola of Lettermullen,
Co Galway, serves to emphasize my affection for the west of Ireland. I now
visit her home patch ever since her parents gifted us a plot on which we have
built a holiday home. Nothing pleases me more than to escape from the
metropolis and the keyboard, and spend a weekend cutting grass. If I’m lucky,
the magical call of the cuckoo will accompany my work in the garden. I am proud
that our three children, Dara, Nora and Meabh have been exposed to this
tradition as have our grandchildren who together with future family members may
cherish this western experience.
Accolades for Growing Up West
… a most impressive piece of work … Patricia O’Reilly (Irish writer and teacher of creative writing), Sept 26, 2019. The time came and I have curled up and read this - it's a wonderful record of an idyllic childhood. Patricia O’Reilly May 5, 2020.
Congratulations Paul … Bob Harley, former schoolboy friend at Newbridge College, US barrister, Sept 29, 2019.
… will look your memoir over especially the section on MIT, Jesse Schwartz, Living Tree Community Foods, Berkley, CA 94709, Sept 26, 2019.
OTHER WORKS BY PAUL B MCNULTY
Historical novels with Club Lighthouse CLP,
Edmonton,
Alberta, Canada:
Spellbound by Sibella
(2013)
The Abduction of Anne O’Donel
(2014)
A Story of the Bodkin Murders
(2015)
Books with CreateSpace Independent Publishing
Platform
and Kindle Direct Publishing:
Genealogy of the Anglo-Norman
Lynches who settled in Galway (2013)
A Rebel Romance – novella (2014)
Letters to the Editor: Food
& Food-Related Issues – non-fiction
(2016)
1798: A Rebel Romance – stage
play (2016)
Spellbound by Sibella – stage
play (2017)
A Girl Called May – memoir
(2018)
An Irish Jesuit in Australia
– memoir (2019)
