Martin Naughton ( & Joanna Marsden) - Never Know Your Place : Memoir of a Rulebreaker - PB - BRAND NEW 2024

Product Description

Every young person is looking for freedom,
but some have to fight harder than others …

In 1960s Ireland there was a special place for disabled children: behind the walls of an institution, cut off from the rest of society.

At just nine years old, Martin Naughton was one of these children. Along with his younger sister Barbara he was sent to a Dublin institution, far away from his Irish-speaking home in Spiddal.

But Martin wouldn’t be sidelined. With the help of some unexpected characters – and an unlikely encounter with his Celtic Football heroes – he began to change the way a generation of young disabled people saw themselves.

This is the story of a boy who not only won his own independence, but also led the fight for freedom for all disabled people.

‘Martin was a formidable and tireless campaigner for the right of people with disabilities to live in their own communities and homes.’ President Michael D. Higgins

‘Martin Naughton was a protector, a leader, a gamechanger. In reading this narration of his life, tears filled my eyes.’ Dr Rosaleen McDonagh, playwright, rights activist and author of Unsettled.

Martin Naughton (1954–2016) was a disabled activist from Spiddal, County Galway, who lived most of his life in Baldoyle in north Dublin. Having experienced institutionalisation and fought hard for his freedom, he became a life-long advocate for the right of disabled people to live independently. Through his personal friendships with American activists, he was instrumental in spreading the Independent Living movement to Ireland, and in the mid-1990s he led the landmark political campaign for Personal Assistant services. His later achievements include founding the ‘ENIL Freedom Drive’, a biennial event which brings disabled people from Europe together in Brussels to highlight the right to Independent Living.

Joanna Marsden is a writer and independent radio documentary-maker who lives in Dún Laoghaire. She writes for publications including The Irish Times and got to know Martin when she interviewed him for a book about how life had changed for disabled people in Ireland. Her projects include making documentaries for Newstalk and RTÉ Lyric FM, and contributing to TULCA Festival of Visual Arts.