This week, Trinity Literary Society (Lit Soc) hosted a conversation with writer, journalist and LGBT activist Una Mullally. The discussion was overseen by Lit Soc secretary Sarah Armstrong and committee member Eve Murtagh, and covered everything from Mullally’s journey to becoming a professional journalist, to her books, burnouts, activism and future projects. At the end of the event, Mullally was presented with honorary membership to the society.
Mullally is an award-winning journalist, with weekly columns in both the Irish Times and the Guardian. She also edited the national bestseller Repeal the 8th, which included contributions from Caitlin Moran, Tara Flynn and Sinead Gleeson. In the talk, she stressed the importance of passion for the budding journalists in the audience and claimed it was her desire to be “the best person at what [she’s] doing” that had allowed her to thrive in her writing career. However, she also maintained the importance of having confidence in your own ability and not allowing the criticism of others, particularly those online, to affect you.
She then went on to discuss her book In the Name of Love, an oral history, which recounts the events that gave rise to the marriage equality referendum of May 22nd, 2015. Through the voices of around 70 interviewees, she portrays how the movement developed from protests of “like 20 people” to a national referendum that was passed with 62 per cent of the vote. She mentioned how important it was to her that the book didn’t present itself as a historical narrative, as it sought to convey the nuances of people’s experiences of the campaign. The book has been described as a “refreshing and open” reflection of the period and it is certainly a must-read for those seeking to explore the experiences of the LGBT community in Ireland.
While In the Name of Love garnered significant success, Mullally admitted that the process of writing it caused her major burnout. She explained that she had gotten into the habit of working seven days a week, which on reflection was “a really stupid thing to do”. Consequently, she advised the audience that it was vital for writers to allow themselves to relax, as it is all too easy to allow a project to become all-consuming and compromise your health and happiness in the desire to create.
Mullally then gave the audience some insight into her current projects. While she is also working on some theatre pieces and another book, it was the mention of a screenwriting collaboration with her girlfriend Sarah that had the audience most intrigued. Mullally wouldn’t reveal the exact subject matter of these films, but she did say that they were comedy-drama feature films and that they already had secured funding.
To close, the final question focused on the question all young journalists yearn to learn the truth about: is there any future in the world of print journalism? Mullally seemed to think the future was limited. News is well suited to the instantly updatable medium of the internet, and this is ultimately where its future lies. While she declared herself to be a “print animal”, she did not believe that demand would be high enough to sustain multiple daily printed newspapers, but that this development would be a regretful one. She also observed that with this changing format in news, the way in which journalists write is evolving as well. Longer, more in-depth pieces are increasing in demand, and these are allowing journalists to go into more depth in their pieces. She explained how the mentality of editors in print had always been that the pieces couldn’t be too long as people would get bored, but that this is now changing with the rise of online content.
The talk certainly offered an interesting insight into the world of journalism. Mullally gave both insightful observations into the world of journalism as well as practical advice to young writers, both of which were well received by the audience.
