Donal Coghlan talks to Nuala
Haughey about crossing the line from able-bodied society to disabled
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2000/1221/hom15.htm
Thursday, December
21, 2000
Donal Coghlan cannot
carry his baby son, Zak, in his arms. The 37-year-old musician has multiple
sclerosis, a progressive neurological disease which causes loss of co-ordination
and fatigue.
He can walk with
the aid of a stick, but for the past two years has relied on an electric
wheelchair when he leaves his Dublin flat.
Donal was the lead
singer and song-writer with the band Hinterland, which was prominent in
the late 1980s and early 1990s. Yet even at the height of the band's success
the disease was present in his system, although in remission.
Within more than
a decade he went from having an international recording deal and travelling
the world with Hinterland, to helping organise a variety show in Dublin
to mark International Day for the Disabled.
"I have crossed the
line from able-bodied society to disabled, and it's been an amazing experience,"
he says.
"It was very upsetting
for a couple of years that I was going to be in a wheelchair but I have
made the most of it."
Even today, Donal
has to remind himself that he has crossed this line. At one point when
recounting a story about last month's variety show, he says: "I'm disabled
at the moment." With a shrug he quickly corrects himself: "I'm disabled."
The reaction of others
to his disability still surprises and angers Donal. "I've had people ask
my mother when she's pushing my chair, 'How is he?'. They see you in a
wheelchair and they think you have no brain."
Recently while going
for a train at Heuston Station his wife, Marina, inquired from a CIÉ
worker about wheelchair access. "The man, who was in his 60s, looked at
Marina and said 'Put him in the dining car', he recalls. I thought, hello,
I'm right beside you."
A spirited and resourceful
man with a wicked sense of humour, Donal has in recent years devoted his
considerable artistic energies to projects involving disability groups.
He still composes music in his home studio, although helping look after
eight-month-old Zak has meant less time for this work.
Donal directed a
film shown at the Galway Film Fleadh last year which was written by Stephen
Olwill, who has cerebral palsy. Stephen's only way to communicate is to
spell out words by blinking in response to prompts by someone moving their
finger along the alphabet. The five-minute film, by the group Disability
Lights Action, is currently being considered for viewing by a British television
channel.
Donal attended a
Christmas lunch yesterday organised by a taxi service for disabled people,
called Vantastic, in which he is involved. He is also a member of the Forum
of People with Disabilities, which is both a consumer and a civil rights
group.
It was natural for
him to "embrace and be embraced by the disabled community", he said. "I
have been a song-writer all my life, and a song-writer talks about things
that go to your heart.
"In the last two
years I've been in a wheelchair and I've come up against things like the
fact that I can't get up a kerb on to the footpath and things like this,
where we do not meet EU standards."
Donal says last month's
variety show marking International Day for the Disabled "rocked with alternativeness
and attitude". "What I have learned is that disabled people have such an
irreverent attitude to ablebodied people, but in a nice way. The humour
is intensely brilliant."
Donal says he would
like to keep the issue of disability "in people's faces". "I have been
through the spin-dryer of life. It's still brilliant. It's still wacky
and I have to take the good with the bad."