After a lifetime of dedication to the rural village he grew up in, Michael O’Neill’s fingerprints can be clearly seen on all that is good there. And as his new book chronicles the story of that mammoth commitment, he tells JUDY MURPHY of the importance of community, family and friends.

The inspiring story of how one rural community on the very western coast of Ireland took charge of shaping its own future is the subject of Michael O’Neill’s new book Community: A Time, Place and People, which has just been published by Letterfrack’s Artisan House, a company renowned for the quality of its publications.

This is an account of an Ireland that no longer exists; when public health nurses and gardaí lodged in local houses and when dentists and doctors rented surgery spaces in domestic dwellings.

The early and mid-20th century was also a time when young people were forced to leave Connemara for work, opting for Boston or those English cities where most had relatives, rather than relocating to Dublin which was an unknown quantity.

Michael, who was born in Tully on the Renvyle Peninsula 85 years ago, recounts all of this and more in the book, which was launched a fortnight ago in An Teach Ceoil, Tully, Renvyle, by his friend Labhrás Ó Murchú, the Ard-Stiúrthóir of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann, whom he has known since they trained together as primary teachers.

Apart from that time in Dublin and his years at secondary school in Galway City, Michael has lived in this area all his life and has been involved as people worked together, firstly to provide basic amenities such as a playing field in Tullycross.

Much later,  they bought the former Industrial School in Letterfrack to create a centre that would bring jobs, amenities and social housing to the area.  Along the way, in this place which includes the villages of Letterfrack, Tullycross, Tully in Renvyle, Moyard and Kylemore, the community built a hall, established a credit union, developed Rent-an-Irish Cottage project, a Teach Ceoil, a thriving Comhaltas and drama scene, and did a whole lot more. .

Co-operating on so many projects gave people faith in this place and in their ability, according to Michael, who had never intended moving home after graduating from college in 1961.

“My ambition was to get a job in Dublin – it was the beginning of the 1960s and the nightlife was hectic,” he recalls with a laugh.

But that didn’t happen, because loyalty to his own place won out.  In Easter 1961, just before he qualified, Michael was approached by two local priests about taking on the role of principal in the local, wonderfully named Eagle’s Nest School.

At the time, the two-teacher school had some 50 children, and just one untrained teacher. The priests had a qualified teacher in mind for the second post and Michael agreed to consider their offer, but with conditions.

“These were that there would be a new school built in five years, and that two families who had to climb over Letter Hill, winter and summer, would be provided with transport within three years.”

That request was reasonable, as was the one for a new building, given that the existing one had two bulbs, but no sockets or running water. A fire at one end was the heating source in winter. The priests agreed.

Michael was one of two children and when he told his parents about the offer, they urged him to stay. He did.

Nineteen-year-old May Kenny from the Neale in Mayo took up the other teaching post and, over the years, romance blossomed. They married in 1968 and went on to have six children.

Pictured: Michael O’Neill, speaking at the launch of Community: A time, place and people. The event was held in the Teach Ceoil which has been at the heart of Tully village since 1977.