Arts Week with Judy Murphy

When Christian O’Reilly was writing his powerful drama, No Magic Pill, based on the life of disability rights activist Martin Naughton from An Spidéal, he showed it to Peter Kearns, also a disability rights activist and a consultant on the script.

“He said, ‘Where’s the love story, where’s the sex? You have to free yourself as a writer’.”

Christian, an established playwright and screenwriter, knew what Peter meant.

Campaigning for rights had been central to Martin Naughton’s story but this inspirational person, who died in 2016, had many aspects to his personality. And so it became with the central character in the play, which returns to Galway from November 7-9 after having a sellout run and getting rave reviews here two years ago.

“He has to choose between a life in the US with the woman he has fallen in love with or the call of duty here in Ireland,” says Galway resident, Christian, who first met Martin in the 1990s. The DCU graduate, then a struggling writer, needed  a job and Martin, who had muscular dystrophy and had set up an Independent Living Group in Dublin, needed someone to lobby on their behalf.

After witnessing Martin’s strength of character and skill as a strategist, and having been part of that campaigning community, Christian wanted to tell their story.

It took decades and it took tenacity.

Along the way he wrote the film Inside I’m Dancing (2004) which explored issues around disabilities. But he didn’t have final control over the end result, “and although I loved it, that wasn’t the story I wanted to tell”.

He succeeded and in 2022, No Magic Pill broke new ground in Irish theatre.

“We took a big risk in choosing to cast disabled actors as part of that production, especially because there isn’t a big pool out there.

“We said ‘we’ll find them and give it an authentic feel’. Which we did but we didn’t know it would work.”

Pictured: Julie Sharkey and Eric Fitzgerald in No Magic Pill. PHOTO: ANITA MURPHY.