EDITOR’S DESK

Legacy of Local Ownership

On a rainy family trip to Ireland, I found myself making an unexpected connection with the country and its history. No, I did not discover a long-lost relative, though Fitzgerald is a pretty popular name on the Emerald Isle.

The connection was with electricity — or, more precisely, Ireland’s history of rural electrification.

With the rain coming down outside, I picked up Niall Williams’ “This is Happiness,” a novel set in a small Irish village just as electricity is arriving in the countryside. Williams uses that moment to explore themes of home and community, and how the wonder of electricity represented the crossing of one way of life into another.

The story takes place in the 1950s, and I was surprised to learn that rural electrification came somewhat later to Ireland than it did here. Ireland’s Electricity Supply Board set its first rural electric pole in 1946, and the last communities were not connected until 1978.

Rural residents here experienced the same wonder Williams describes, but there was a key difference. In Ireland, a centralized government program delivered power to rural areas. In the United States, government loans helped rural communities build and own their own power companies: electric cooperatives.

This year marks the 90th anniversary of the Rural Electrification Act, which gave rural communities the means to invest in their own energy future. Instead of simply waiting for electricity to arrive, neighbors came together and built cooperatives to do it themselves.

Today, that model of community ownership lives on in the nearly 900 electric cooperatives across the country, including 13 in Pennsylvania.

Recently, I attended Somerset Rural Electric Cooperative’s Annual Meeting, where that legacy was on full display. Despite a heavy downpour, members gathered as a community to conduct the business of their cooperative.

They heard financial reports, elected directors, awarded scholarships, and recognized board members and employees.

With the storm outside, members cheered the co-op employees who keep the lights on — a simple but powerful expression of appreciation and ownership.

That moment captured the heart of the cooperative story. Electricity transformed rural life — here and in Ireland. But in communities like Somerset, local ownership gave people something more lasting: a voice, a responsibility and a stake in their future. Ninety years later, that remains the real power of the cooperative model.

PETER A. FITZGERALD
EXECUTIVE EDITOR