A whole lotta history

There are few people in Mullingar with the knowledge of the place that they live in that Ruth Illingworth has - but then again there are very few people anywhere with her passion for history and her zeal and flair for bringing it to life.Did you know that by reading the Westmeath Examiner you could in fact be leaving yourself open to ex-communication?The spat between the first editor of the Examiner John P Hayden and the Bishop at the time over proposals for a town waterworks in the 1890s led the clergyman to excommunicate the newspaper man, a ban that has yet to be lifted.'That is as far as I know,' laughed Ruth. 'So by talking to you I am risking my neck as well I suppose. My publishers are actually very interested in the possibility of a book about the forty year struggle to have a waterworks installed here. The whole saga inspired Joyce"s first work, "My Brilliant Career", a play which he destroyed before it was published.'There is so much to write about Mullingar and even after the two books that I have already written on the town, I still think that there is at least one more even if it"s mostly photos, I would still like to do that.'Ruth"s interest in history started at an early age and she was lucky enough to grow up in a house 'filled with history books' and parents who encouraged her to read them.'I was very good at history at school and followed through to take it for my degree. Actually my special subject at college, minorities" religions in Ireland, is the subject for my next book.'People assume that Ireland is entirely Roman Catholic or Church of Ireland but that certainly has not been the case throughout Irish history.'Westmeath and the whole Midlands area was very popular with both the Quaker and Unitarian religions and it is the latter which will be the main focus for my book given the pre-eminent people who were of the Unitarian persuasion particularly at the turn of the century.'The real founder of the United Irishmen Captain William Drennan was Unitarian, as was Labour part leader Thomas Johnston who was part of the first Dáil which sat 90 years ago this year.'Unitarianism is linked with deep socialist principles and the anti-slavery movement and the women"s movement were also both linked to the movement.'Most notably Padraig Pearse"s father came from a Unitarian background.'Notable Britons such as Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens and Florence Nightingale were also Unitarians. The religious difference between Unitarians and other Christian sects is that they don"t believe in the holy trinity nor do they believe in the divinity of Christ.'I have so much material on the subject already that writing the book will just be a process of sifting through it.'Ruth"s Mullingar home is a 180-year-old house on Bishopgate Street from which she has seen many changes in Mullingar particularly in the last few decades.'Well one example of the change is that I have an Australian friend who came to Mullingar almost half a century ago and people will call after him in the street, "There"s the Aussie" and now I would estimate that there are about 50 nationalities in the town, at least.'I am involved with Project Integrate which, as the name suggests, aims to allow people to get to know about the different cultures that we are living with now. Did you know that there are 200 Muslims in Mullingar?'In years gone by I would have said that I could have walked down the street in town and been sure of meeting at least two or three people that I knew but now that is something I wouldn"t be so sure of.'But I would say that almost all the changes over the years have been positive and the town needed to expand so that it could survive.'Ruth"s surname betrays her London roots, but while her father was born in London, he was raised in Cavan and his love of Mullingar led him to stay here long after his billet as a soldier at the barracks was up.'My father spent 50 years of his life here,' said Ruth. 'He was stationed here during World War II after joining the army in 1940 and he decided to stay on here and met my mother.'On my mother"s side both her father and his father before him were engineers for the waterworks and the trees that you can see at the Springfield tunnel were planted by my grandfather. So my Mullingar roots really are strong,' she laughed.'I have lots of contact with the English side of my family and my sister has been living there for more than 25 years and I take every chance I can to visit her. I love London especially the galleries and museums but I have to say that Mullingar is perfect for me. It is just the right size of town, not too big or small and with the countryside all around and Dublin just an hour away, it"s the best of all worlds.'