The sky is not my limit… I am.
T.F. Hodge

Sometimes you meet people and they tell you that something is not possible because it has not been done before. Never mind done by someone like you.

Then you show them that it is not you but their lack of foresight, imagination, and creativity, that it is their need for security, their ‘more of the same because that is what I know’ approach, and their narrow mindedness that prevents innovation, that prevents boundaries to be pushed, and layers upon layers of bureaucracy from being removed to make happen what should and can happen.

Martin Naughton was a man who knew no limits. Not the sky. Nor anything else.

Last night, Pádraig went to the Tallaght Civic Centre for the play, No Magic Pill, that celebrates his life.

I cried watching it.

Years ago, I met Martin a few times in his house in Baldoyle. He was going to teach me all I needed to know to deal with our new life, its changed circumstances.

That never happened because of his untimely death, leaving behind the Independent Living Movement he founded, as well as the AT Network, Pádraig is now part of.

Thirty to fourty years ago, a mother whose baby daughter had suffered brain damage after she received a 3-in-1 vaccine.

The mother, together with a group of parents in a similar situation, decided to set up a specialised Centre in Carlow.

Today, the Centre has more than 200 employees and is caring for 150 persons with intellectual disabilities. The Delta Centre offers Day Centre services, as well as respite and living services in the community.

Last week, a good friend and I visited the Delta Centre and met its founder and some of the people who set it up and are still developing it.

It was truly inspiring and extraordinary. At the heart of their service is a sensory garden and a café where their clients, families, and visitors meet.

I had never seen a garden like the one in Carlow’s Delta Centre in my life. There were endless attacks on my  sight, my ears, my sense of smell, taste, and touch. The extraordinary people who had developed the garden matched its sensational impact. These are people for whom the sky was not the limit.

During the week, Pádraig had a session with people who have been developing accessible music technology with simple to use interfaces, and engaging ways to enjoy and interact with music.

They were using a Keith McMillen Bop Pad, often used by drummers, with 4 Independently programmable zones and velocity and pressure sensitivity. It was one of those magic moment when Pádraig realised that even with his limited controllable movements he could control aspects of his environment – and even play an electric guitar.

On Monday, we continued to work with Kay Coombes and Margaret Walker in An Saol, learning about different and most likely better ways for Pádraig to stand.

There are people who set themselves and others limits because they are not used to look behind the horizon.

There are people for whom not even the sky is the limit. People who never seize pushing their limits way out into the beyond.

Why remain boringly mediocre if you can excel, have fun, and enjoy life?