This year is the seventieth anniversary of rural electrification. Ballpoint Press, the publishers of the acclaimed Around the Farm Gate, is working with ESB to bring out an anthology of stories marking the impact of rural electrification.
Around the Farm Gate, has stories from fifty different writers from around the country. The book is an engaging read for anyone interested in stories from the countryside of years ago. The rural electrification book will be on similar lines.
Ballpoint Press is looking for submissions of short essays (about 2,000 words) for their new book. PJ Cunningham will be editing it and is looking for unique true stories of how electrification affected you and others in rural areas.
Dr Joe Kearney, one of the contributors to Around The Farm Gate, thought of the idea for this new book, and as well as interviewing people for stories from archive leads he is doing a radio documentary on rural electrification for RTÉ, to be broadcast on 5 November, the date seventy years ago that the first pole was erected under the scheme. You might even get your story mentioned on the radio show!
So, if you have a story to tell of what it was like to get electricity for the first time, send it for consideration to PJ Cunningham via his email address ballpointpress1@gmail.com, no later than 10 July.