Jim Mullarkey, from Knocknacarra, read a snippet of his work to a packed audience at Sheridan’s Wine Bar in the city. He was one of four writers asked to take part in the Over The Edge feast of fiction event and the audience was enthralled. They listened eagerly as the words poured from the page of the local writer, who was short-listed for the Raymond Carver Short Story Award and the Fish Short Story Competition. He was also a runner-up in the prestigious RTE Francis McManus Award for his story ‘Heaven’.
Not many knew that the writer before them was a former member of Galway City Council and has the ability to lift the lid on the reality of life as a councillor. He now works for the Brothers of Charity, helping people with special needs, and became a counsellor again - albeit of a different nature – by studying for his psychotherapy qualification.
“There is a similarity between being a councillor and a counsellor,” explains Jim.
“I was involved in a political party because I had a belief that I could help people by providing better housing, healthcare and education. Now I see the possibility of helping people through psychotherapy. It is a personal development for me - you have to develop personally in order to help others. I look at different aspects of a problem. Over time, the pieces start coming together, but you have to have some sense of your own life coming together before you can help others. There has to be meaning in your own life,” he says.
Jim was co-opted onto Galway City Council in 1993 and served with the council until 1999. He originally ran in the local elections of 1991 with the intention of maximising the Labour vote and says he had “no great ambition” to become a councillor. However, he didn’t shy away when the opportunity arose and found it to be a new and challenging experience. The Mutton Island debate was a hot topic at the time and the city was also faced with a dramatic rise in the number of planning applications. Jim admits this often led to a “grey area” where “landowners wanted their land rezoned and developers would have both reasonable and unreasonable requests”.
“We had to build houses,” says Jim.
“Some called for an embargo on building but, for people to stay in Galway, we had to build. The planning situation was poor. There was a sudden explosion in applications but we didn’t have an adequate expansion of the planning office. It was a different council to what it is now. We had our differences but we always worked together for Galway. I was fortunate to work with many great people who have since passed away. I was very fond of the late Bridie Flaherty. She always had a kind word to say to people and she was one of the old stock. The late Michael Leahy was a very spiritual man who had a great belief in people and great respect for people. I also had great time for Claddagh man Martin Connolly and for Angela Lupton,” he says.
Jim argues that the “media circus” surrounding the current council was simply “not there” during the 1990s. The council was not driven by personalities, he says, and they all “had a job to do at the end of the day”. In fact, he describes how councillors are on duty 24-hours a day, with members of the public calling at any time, day or night. He explains how they would “meet you on the street and ask some of the strangest things!” Despite the upheaval, Jim commends the local authority for their initiative regarding refuse collection during the ‘90s, as Galway was at the forefront of waste recycling.
Social concerns were always paramount for the young Jim who first met his wife Holly at an anti-nuclear stand in Galway. He was the youngest of seven children and grew up in the idyllic surroundings of Bundoran, Co. Donegal. He recalls a time when his sister returned from the US during the 1970s with tales of homes with large televisions, walk-in fridges and telephones. It was an age when few households in Ireland owned either a car or a phone and Jim says it was “very different to what we have today”.
At the time, visitors from Northern Ireland descended on the seaside town during the holidays to escape the Orange Parades. This made him very aware of the conflict in the neighbouring counties and awakened his political consciousness. As he grew up, Jim worked as a landscape gardener and in a bakery before finding his new home in Galway, where he studied philosophy, sociology and politics. He later went on to complete a Masters degree at NUI, Galway, looking at the recovery group ‘Alcoholics Anonymous’. Jim and Holly married while he was in his twenties and have settled in Knocknacarra with their five children, Mia, Jody, twins Sarah and Anna, and Eddie.
“I first met Holly at an anti-nuclear stand in Galway,” he explains.
“It was just after Secondary School and I remember she actually laughed at something I said. This surprised me as I was deadly serious at the time and I hadn’t intended to be funny at all! About three years later we met again in Dublin and it took off from there. I always consider that falling in love was my biggest achievement and the biggest challenge. Everything else you can deal with, but falling in love means that you have to ask yourself questions with no simple answers, and no one can answer those questions for you,” he says.
Writing has provided Jim with an outlet to “throw light on the corners of my own psyche” and he originally put pen to paper in a bid to find a new way of expression. He never considered himself to be a literary writer and simply wanted to discover a fresh creative avenue. He was struck by Joyce’s stream of consciousness writing style in ‘Molly Bloom’ and realised he could adapt this form to suit his needs. He started to write without punctuation but discovered his work needed some structure for it to be understood.
“I always had an interest in writing as a way to express human experience,” he says.
“I use punctuation now, but only to help myself understand where I am going. I tend to use ‘and’ an awful lot. The word ‘and’ signifies possibility. The writer Edna O’Brien says that all fiction comes from the unconscious. It is a metaphor for what’s happening in your life. I find that most creative writing is done in context of literature and not self discovery. I never intended my writing to be literary, I just wanted to express myself, but it resonated with somebody! I am delighted my writing has been recognised through different competitions but I want to get to a place of writing for its own sake. If you are writing about yourself, you can objectively look at it again and you can engage with your thoughts in another way. In that sense it is very therapeutic,” he says.
Jim studied psychotherapy in a move which was inspired by his work for the Brothers of Charity. It is a job which utilises all of his skills including his passion for music. Jim plays both the piano and piano accordion and has been part of a band for many years. However, he has had to row back on his musicianship in order to make time for the other pursuits in his life. Chief among these is his work with people with special needs.
“My job is very rewarding,” he says.
“I bring everything to it. For example, one day we could be making jam, soup or scones and we do a fair bit of work in the kitchen. I also play the piano for the people I work with and became interested in psychotherapy through my work with people with special needs. You need the ability to put someone at ease and you need to be at ease yourself. A few people mentioned to me that I should look at becoming a counsellor as I already had some of the basic skills. Active listening is a major part of it,” he says.
Jim doesn’t envisage a return to the council chamber although he is grateful for the experience he had and the people he met during that period of his life. He is looking to a future where he will be better able to serve the needs of those who need him most, through his writing and his new role as a counsellor.
This article first appeared in the Connacht Tribune City Lives Section
