Tag Archives: Christian O’Reilly

Dear Martin Naughton…

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A letter to Martin, eight years after your passing

(written after going to see No Magic Pill in the Black Box Theatre, Galway on 9 November 2024)

Dearest Martin,

There are around six hundred thousand people with disabilities, the term you used, in Ireland. Yet, for some reason, you seem to have had the biggest impact on many of our lives, regardless of disability. You were an extraordinary man, even though, just like your peers, you were probably made to feel “less than” for not “making an effort” to walk or try to conform to mainstream society. You taught us that the discrimination we faced was not our fault, through discovering this fact yourself.

I consider myself an intelligent woman, yet until we met, I genuinely thought that it was my duty to push myself to become almost normal. I did not believe it appropriate to highlight my own weaknesses and shortcomings, for fear they would be used against me. Until I met you, I thought I was great for hiding my struggles, for beating myself into a world that I didn’t seem to fit into, for doing everything myself rather than asking for help. When we met for the first time in 2005, the first thing I saw was an older man with greying hair. What could this auld one possibly know about life, I thought. Little did I know that it was down to the actions of you and your friends that had enabled me to have the relatively sheltered mainstream life I enjoyed, and by “sheltered”, I mean I was sheltered from feeling the full effects of institutionalisation, exclusion and rejection. 

That June day, in Chief O’Neill’s in Smithfield, you shattered my world into pieces, and I found myself questioning myself and everything I’d ever been taught. Was it heroic or folly to try to hide the elements of myself that made people uncomfortable? You led me to realise that there was nothing wrong with me, and that there never had been.

I remember our first conversation. You asked me if I knew what a Leader Forum was, and I said yes. We both knew I was lying, because at the time, there was no such thing. Yet something about you told me that I had to “fake it ‘til I make it.” From that moment on, I watched as an entire movement came to you looking for answers. It seemed that you always knew what to say and do. What was that like, were you honoured or did it piss you off from time to time?

From that fateful June day, you have been in the background of everything I have done and achieved; living independently, working with Offaly Centre for Independent Living, and when I was presented with the opportunity to get married and have a child. I thought of you and how you and others had led the fight that enabled me to have these luxuries (yes, they should be rights, but I think we’d agree that we’re not quite at that point yet). You lived as you pleased; you didn’t answer to anyone, something that so many of us continue to aspire to.

Like many of us, I put you on a pedestal. I always expected you to have the answers. Did you like this, as so many people intimated, or did you feel lonely? Please know that watching you spurred myself and so many others to find our own answers. If you could do it, anyone could. I recall when I worked for you that summer of 2005, how frustrated I became with you for asking me to set up a Leader Forum, but neglecting to give me any hints as to how to do this on a practical level. Now, twenty years later, I understand why: you wanted me to find the answers myself, to take risks, to fail and learn from my mistakes. I guess I should thank you for trusting me, because since then I’ve taken plenty of risks which have led to a life that was beyond reach for many of your generation.

I remember watching the last “action” you would ever take in September 2015, and shaking my head in frustration as members of the general public asked what it was about. It made me wonder why you even bothered trying to make a difference. Then I remembered that you have seen the grey walls of an institution. You truly understand what losing freedom and liberty is like, and that’s why you dedicated your life to ensuring that it didn’t happen again.

I guess all that’s left is to thank you. Thank you for coming into my life during a formative time, when I was still ashamed of being associated with the “disability sector” in any way. Thank you for changing how I value others and myself. I’d always connected my own self-worth to the tasks I could carry out unaccompanied, buying into a widespread consumerist belief that wearing yourself out in the name of productivity was akin to a badge of honour. Thank you for teaching me that my wobbly body was not the cause of my exclusion. Thank you for granting me the permission to speak out against the systemic discrimination that we face on a daily basis.

I don’t think you truly realise the profound impact you had on people. Christian O’Reilly has made it his life’s work to capture your story, not giving up until he had captured the essence of you. I have seen “No Magic Pill” twice now, and although the actors portrayed the characters to an Oscar-winning standard, it’s the feeling that seeped through my being both times I’ve watched it. Paddy Slattery and Eric Fitzgerald portrayed you in different ways, but watching them, it was you I felt beside me, as if I was being given a second chance to say goodbye properly. That said, it might be argued that even after eight years, we are not ready to say goodbye. Between “No Magic Pill” and your autobiography which was co-written with Joanna Marsden, we can hold onto you for that little bit longer.

Most importantly, thank you for being you, without which many of us would not be enjoying true Independent Living. May we always be strong enough to protect everything you and others ever fought for.

Love Sarah xx

“No Magic Pill”: A Perfect Tribute to our friend Martin Naughton

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Screenplay/Writer: Christian O’Reilly

Producer: Raymond Keane

Performed by: Sorcha Curley, Mark Fitzgerald, Peter Kearns, Ferdia MacAonghusa, Julie Sharkey and Paddy Slattery

Dramaturg & Disability Consultant: Peter Kearns

Set Design: Ger Clancy

Lighting Design: Sarah Jane Shiels

Costume Design: Deirdre Dwyer

Music and Sound Design: Trevor Knight

Movement Director: Rachel Parry

Voice Coach: Andrea Ainsworth

It takes a special kind of person to inspire the writing of an entire play. And only an extraordinary person would have his role in the play performed by someone who knew him and held him in the highest regard. Having seen No Magic Pill in the Civic Theatre, Tallaght on 9 October last, I know that I am not alone in my gratitude for being able to witness such a fitting celebration of Martin Naughton’s life.

Writer and playwright Christian O’Reilly has always been an important ally and friend to the Independent Living Movement. From his very first encounter with Martin Naughton twenty-seven years ago, his ambition has always been to capture Martin’s story in a way that would appeal to and educate a wider mainstream audience. His critically acclaimed film, Inside I’m Dancing (known as Rory O’Shea Was Here in the US), marked his first attempt in bringing Martin’s story and, by default, disabled people and the philosophy of Independent Living into the public consciousness. It’s a film that he is rightly proud of: the story of two young men who escape the confines of institutional living and use their freedom to screw up their own lives as they see fit. I remember seeing it in the cinema myself at the age of twenty-one, when I would’ve been clubbing and partying and making mistakes. I remember how grateful I felt that Christian had taken the time to consider the realities of what it was like to be disabled in Ireland.

In recent interviews, Christian has admitted that while he was (and still is) proud of Inside I’m Dancing, it wasn’t the story that he wanted to tell. A month before Martin passed away, Christian promised his friend that he would complete a dramatic telling of Martin’s story. This promise culminated into the production of No Magic Pill, a piece of theatre that has been twenty-six years in the making – and it shows. Each line of dialogue was carefully crafted, each scene beautifully woven together with the threads of human emotion. It’s also ground-breaking insofar as all the disabled characters are portrayed by up-and-coming disabled actors, and this performance truly showcases the talent of these actors.

No Magic Pill opens poignantly with the story of a young Martin being unwillingly sent to St. Mary’s in Baldoyle “as he is not getting any better.” Nine-year-old Martin is depicted on stage as a small puppet with splints. He has no say or control over the day-to-day mundanities of life: he is literally a puppet on a string. He wants to get better; he wants to walk.  Like many young disabled people, his sense of value is equated with his physical abilities. As he gets older, however, he surprises himself: he sets up his own garage and he teaches the younger residents of St. Mary’s how to swim.

Filmmaker-turned-actor Paddy Slattery effortlessly embodies the spirit of the Martin we know and love. Slattery doesn’t just act; he pours his soul into the role. His ability to empathise with Martin’s character is very special. Outwardly, Martin is persuasive; he knows how to get what he wants. However, inside he is crumbling under the expectation that he will be some sort of saviour for his disabled peers. The ghost of Brendan is constantly haunting him, whispering to him about the new life he could have in America. It’s more accessible, there are more opportunities, he could live independently. But when the first Centre for Independent Living is funded for two years (by the EU Horizon Project), his peers realise that their independence could be whipped away in an instant.

Sorcha Curley embodies the spirit of the late Ursula Hegarty. She’s spent her life in an institution, and she’s not going back. She’s feisty, argumentative, but also afraid; this gamble that she’s taking – trying to live independently – needs to work out, or she risks spending the rest of her life in a home or, best case scenario, dependent on her partner Jimmy.  She points out that Martin will be okay, but that the rest of them need the Personal Assistant Service to continue if they are to escape a fate of institutionalisation, with no choice of when to get up or go to bed. It becomes clear that they will have to fight for their freedom, as a united collective. Martin’s decisions are suddenly universally relevant: whatever he decides to do with his own life will inevitably affect Ursula’s, Dermot’s and, it is implied, the lives of disabled people across the country. 

On stage, Paddy embodies this unfairness in a realistic and poignant way. He’s torn between his dreams of a life without inhibitions and a sense of duty to his disabled peers. To complicate matters, he’s fallen for his P.A. Josie, played beautifully by Julie Sharkey. She’s shy and lacking confidence, something Martin makes it his mission to remedy, just as the real Martin did for many of us throughout his lifetime. Josie doesn’t take any shit from Martin, and Sharkey and Slattery have an undeniable chemistry onstage that feeds seamlessly into their characters. Once again, as in Inside I’m Dancing, writer Christian explores the complexity of the PA/Leader relationship when Martin falls in love with Josie. Inappropriate as this may be, it reminds us of the importance of giving disabled people the permission to mess up and make mistakes, just like everybody else.

Unsurprisingly for those of us privileged to know him on a personal level, Peter Kearns as Dermot steals many of the laughs of the show. Because of his speech impairment, Dermot often isn’t taken seriously and his opinions are overlooked or dismissed. He relies on Martin to translate for him, a role that Martin tires of. Martin encourages him to use his PA to communicate, which lends Dermot his freedom. Peter was also the Disability Equality Dramaturg for the production, bringing his years of experience in lecturing in Disability Studies in St. Angela’s, Sligo to ensure that the entire cast had an equal and deep understanding of the history of disability and the social model.

Kearns cleverly plays on the mechanics of his own impairment when portraying Dermot.  As he pointed out during a post-show discussion, one of the benefits of using disabled actors in this production is that they are free to explore and portray their characters as only these actors can; there’s no “cripping up” which means that more attention is paid to the characters and the world they inhabit. Ferdia MacAonghusa’s physical performances, particularly where he drags himself across the stage, acts as a physical reminder to us all of the uniqueness of the crippled body.  It can also be seen as a call to action: disabled actors will no longer be silent while non-disabled actors assume our roles and sanitise the perceived “unsavoury” realities of our impairments.

No Magic Pill is so much more than a play about disability. It’s a play that explores the sacrifices required by those involved in activism. I found myself wondering: to what extent did Martin sacrifice his own happiness to secure a better quality of life for the better of the collective? Was he frightened? Lonely? Bitter? Martin was far from a saint, but he certainly was an aspirational human being who wanted to make the world more accessible for himself and his peers. Without him and the others who came together to establish the first Center for Independent Living, many of us would be living in institutions or in the back rooms of our parents’ houses.

No Magic Pill has set an exciting precedence for future productions about disabled characters in Ireland. Seeing the powerful performances by the disabled actors should lead producers and casting directors to question why, historically, disabled actors have not been encouraged to assume acting roles. As Selina Bonnie, Independent Living Movement Ireland’s Vice Chairperson commented, this production has proven that with thought, awareness training and innovative set design, barriers that often prevent disabled actors from availing of acting opportunities can be removed.

I am so grateful that Christian O’Reilly persevered in his mission to bring this heartwarming story into the public consciousness. It certainly gives me hope as a writer that one day I, too, will write a story that represents the reality of living as a disabled person. Thank you to Christian, to the producers and cast for bringing Martin’s spirit back to life. It was such a timely and fitting tribute to a remarkable man, activist and friend, whose sixth anniversary we remember on 13 October. I have no doubt that everyone involved in this unique and memorable production has made our old friend proud.

Film Review: Sanctuary

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It’s been over four years since the RTE documentary that I partook in, Somebody to Love, was aired for the first time. At the time the documentary was recorded, I was going through quite a rough patch emotionally, the mental wounds of having been so heavily scrutinised as a disabled mother had not yet healed. Frankly, I had felt hard done by, the victim of discrimination as a result of my physical impairment. But I was soon reminded, when I watched the documentary that however bad things had been for me, they were much worse for other people.

Living in Ireland all my life, I know that the subject of sexual intercourse has traditionally been taboo, especially sex outside marriage and the notion of freedom of sexual expression. But what if you were living in a country where, for you at least, having sex was illegal? What if you were excluded from exploring your sexual identity because of an outdated law that dictated that sexual intercourse before marriage is essentially rape?

Ireland has a tradition of mollycoddling disabled people, and this culture is slow to change. You may not be aware (as I wasn’t prior to taking part in the documentary) that until recently there was an archaic law called the Lunacy Act 1891 (replaced in 2015 by the Assisted Decision Making Capacity Act) that deemed it illegal for people with intellectual disabilities to have sex outside marriage. This meant that it was assumed that people with intellectual disabilities could not understand or give consent to sexual intercourse.

This is the undercurrent of the film Sanctuary. Sanctuary was originally a play commissioned by the Blue Teapot Theatre Company and written by Christian O’Reilly, who also wrote the film Inside I’m Dancing. Sanctuary is different to any other film I’ve seen depicting the lives of people with disabilities because the cast is largely comprised of people with intellectual disabilities. It’s a refreshing break from the norm of non-disabled actors assuming the roles of people with disabilities; Daniel Day Lewis played Christy in My Left Foot; in Inside I’m Dancing, the two main characters Rory and Michael were played by James McAvoy and Steven Robertson, neither of whom have disabilities in real life. So it was almost a surreal experience to be watching authentic disabled actors on screen.

But don’t be fooled into thinking that the actors were merely given these roles as some kind of tokenistic gesture – these actors are talented and each one inhabited their character with the same dedication as you’d see on any Hollywood screen. The film is set in Galway, with beautiful shots of Galway scenery showcased throughout.  Kieran Coppinger plays Larry, a quirky guy with Down Syndrome and Charlene Kelly plays Sophie, who has an intellectual disability and epilepsy. Both of the actors face the same reality as the characters they play – for them, sex before marriage is illegal. But that’s not going to stop Larry in his quest to have some ‘alone time’ with Sophie!

Tom, the care worker, brings a group of people with intellectual disabilities to the cinema, then leaves them unsupervised to arrange a hotel room for Larry and Sophie with the contents of Larry’s piggy bank. The existence of the piggy bank reminds us how childlike Larry is – or is it simply because he’s treated like a child? As the story progresses, it becomes clear how sheltered Larry has been. Although he’s in his twenties, his mother is disgusted at him for looking at a woman posing in her underwear in a magazine, and she chides him as he leaves the house for bringing too many sweets in his rucksack (she doesn’t know he’s bringing his piggy bank).

Shielding people with intellectual disabilities from the reality of sexual intercourse is bound to have repercussions. Firstly, it doesn’t make people less vulnerable to abuse, something that Sophie can attest to, having been sexually abused in her care home. Secondly, Larry knows that he needs to use a condom ‘to stop Sophie getting pregnant,’ but doesn’t know how to use one, and giving Larry a demonstration is beyond Tom’s comfort zone.  This results in Larry and Sophie having unprotected sex because, as Sophie says, ‘ah sure we couldn’t work it out.’ She smiles at the thought of having a baby with Larry, oblivious to the fact that it is highly unlikely that the State would allow two parents with intellectual disabilities raise a child.

Even though the main story is dark, some parts of the film are hilarious. While Larry and Sophie contemplate breaking the law, their unsupervised companions wander the streets of Galway and end up in comical situations, robbing shops, getting drunk and even getting high! There are some brilliant one-liners too that will put a smile on your face.

Does the film have a happy ending? That’d be telling! All I’ll say is this is a story that you won’t forget, and one that should be talked about long after the closing credits. And that the authenticity of the film – a combination of the plot, the characters and the setting -will change the way you perceive people with intellectual disabilities in a way no other film has thus far.

Sanctuary is available on Amazon. Go buy it – you won’t be disappointed!