Lifestyle – Christian O’Reilly’s new play No Magic Pill was a slow burner. Now that it’s finally being staged in Dublin and Galway, he has fulfilled a longtime promise to the late disability campaigner Martin Naughton from An Spidéal. Christian tells JUDY MURPHY how this brilliant and contradictory man changed lives and inspired him.

Christian O’Reilly was fresh out of DCU and in need of a job when he first met Martin Naughton, originally from An Spidéal and living in Dublin. Martin, who had muscular dystrophy, was an activist, seeking rights for disabled people and had established an Independent Living group to do this. He needed someone to lobby on their behalf.

That was in 1995, at a time when Christian, a Communications graduate, knew he wanted to be a creative writer, but also needed money to live.

“I probably turned up to the interview in a shirt and tie and Martin was wearing a fishing hat and smoking a cigarette,” recalls Christian with laugh.

Martin introduced himself by telling Christian to “shake the thumb” and they got chatting,

“I didn’t even know what lobbying involved. But he must have seen something in me because he gave me the job. Within a week, I was introducing speakers at a conference on disability rights,” says Christian.

“I had no confidence but he saw a willingness to work and he had the potential to find out what talent people had.

“He would see a capacity in people to do something and challenge them to do it – and they always rose to it. He railed against the notion of disabled people as passive and the Centre for Independent Living was like the IRA of disability”.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App

Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.

Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.

Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite  HERE.

Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.