Extract 1: Get Back

Get back to where you once belonged. Our century of change.

Jimmy, Paddy, and Johnny kick off a game of football on their local village green. School’s
out as the brothers enjoy a few weeks away from lockup in St Joseph’s School for Blind Boys
(JoJo’s), which they called ‘The Drum’ because of its Drumcondra, Dublin location.

It’s 1930s Ireland, and the midlands townspeople of Kilbeggan go shopping or to church.
Some may clock in for work at the nearby whiskey distillery, while others may prefer to have
it ‘distilled’ to them at the local pub.

The footballing siblings – all have hereditary eye conditions with resulting partial sight – are
having fun.

Two local gardaí pedal up and shout at the boys, ‘Go home, you’re not allowed out! If yis
don’t go home, we’ll send you back to your asylum in Dublin!’
Game over.

Fifty years later, the middle sibling, Paddy, was in Long Island, New York, where he saw his
son – that’s me – walk with the Irish team at the Opening Ceremony of the VII Paralympic
Games. On 19 June 1984, 9,000 members of the NYPD and US security services were on
hand as President Ronald Reagan welcomed the 3,000-plus participants.

No chance Paddy could be sent back to the asylum now. He was treated like a king by the
NYPD, who ensured he was well fed and watered.

Paddy, his siblings and his contemporaries came a long way in half a century: from not being
allowed to play sports in the open to their offspring competing on the world stage.

Extract 2: River deep mountain high

Paula Dorrington (Dublin) and Gus Dorrington (Dublin). Including athletics, mountain
climbing and skiing.

‘I’m still alive because of sport,’ Paula Dorrington tells me three times during my lunchtime
visit to her home. ‘I’ve been a diabetic since I was 9, which resulted in me losing my
eyesight. At 23, I became epileptic.’

Paula recalls finding sport – and love – at her new job at Blindcraft in the early 80s. Irish
Blindcraft, closed now for two decades, was the state agency that provided employment for
b/vi people in skills such as basketry.

Paula says, ‘One of the girls told me about Gus, who was working facing me all the time. He
was a runner, she said, who trained with a gang of b/vi athletes each Saturday. A few weeks
later, Gus asked me to join him at a session. I agreed but didn’t think I was going to run, as I
was diabetic and overweight. After a few exercises, I was wrecked, but coach Tony Guest
kept with me. When it was over, Tony asked me back the following week, and I thought, no
chance!

‘Then I checked my glucose meter, and I couldn’t believe it – my blood sugar had gone down
quite a bit.

‘Back at work on Monday, Gus asked if I enjoyed the Saturday session. I told him I loved it!
Gus offered to take me running midweek. He ran the eight-mile round trip across Dublin to
my home and back. We used a string to link us.’

Paula and Gus were soon tethered together in every sense and tied the knot in matrimony in
1997.