The expanding diversity of McNulty's productions has thus helped "provide an opportunity to extend keyboard performing practice to include the piano repertory of the 19th century" (New Grove).

He attended a seminar at the Steinway factory in New York and was recruited to work there as a technician, but chose instead to embark on a career as a fortepiano builder, and served his apprenticeship for two years under Robert Smith in Somerville, Massachusetts.

In 1986 John Gibbons invited McNulty to accompany his European tour with Frans Brüggen's Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century.

In September 2018 McNulty fortepianos Graf copy 1819, Pleyel 1830 and Buchholtz 1826 were used in the first International Chopin Competition on Period Instruments.

[6] At present, McNulty builds fortepianos suitable for performances of piano works from Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Mozart and Beethoven to Chopin, Liszt and Brahms.