Irish Paralympian champions adaptive fashion
Reporting by Dee Makofane
Irish Paralympian Ellen Keane is championing the importance of adaptive clothing options for people with disabilities.
Adaptive clothes are specially designed to meet a person's dressing needs, and include things like magnetic buttons and side zips.
However, stylish and affordable options have not always been widely available.
"I have so many friends with different types of disabilities and I know the struggles they have trying to find fashion that not only suits them and fits their needs, but is also fashionable.
"Adaptive fashion just gives people the freedom and confidence and dignity that everyone deserves."
Keane was Ireland's youngest ever athlete at 13 when she competed at the 2008 Paralympic Games in Beijing.
She won a gold medal at the 2020 Tokyo Games and retired after her fifth and final Paralympics in Paris last year.
She was speaking today at an event in Dublin organised by Penneys.
The retailer launched a range of adaptive clothing earlier this year and has committed to making its stores more accessible for everyone.
"I remember, as a young girl, realising I'd have to figure out how to put on a bra with one hand - it was terrifying. I'm a 30-year-old woman now and sometimes I need to ask my boyfriend to tie my buttons. That's taking away my independence and that's kind of embarrassing.
"Adaptive fashion gives me my dignity back. It gives me the power. Every disabled person deserves the right to wear what they want to wear and have the independence while wearing it," Keane said.
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37 minutes ago
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Johnny Marr: 'There was a purity about Rory Gallagher'
JOHNNY Marr has a new addition to his studio. 'I'm looking at a poster of him now that I got from Jill Furmanovsky about three weeks ago,' he says. 'I had it framed and put up in the studio. Rainbow Theatre, March, 1973. It's a sweet picture.' The him is Rory Gallagher. Blues virtuoso, check shirt wizard, prodigal son of Cork and Donegal, Ireland's first rock star and guitar hero to many around the world, including Smiths legend Marr. 'There was a purity about him without him being puritanical,' says Marr. 'There was more to him than just showbusiness. It was almost something religious. You knew there was a vocation there. 'People who were moved by his records or shows never really lose their affection for him. 'It's not about nostalgia, it's something to do with his integrity.' Gallagher died 30 years ago this month in London aged just 47. It's impossible to overstate his importance to Irish music. With Taste he lit the flame for every Irish band that followed. As a solo artist, he sold millions of albums, was labelled the best guitarist in the world and was courted by The Rolling Stones. Born in Ballyshannon and reared in Cork, Gallagher illuminated the North in the darkest days of the Troubles and had a huge following across Europe. There's a street near Paris named in his honour. But he was a reluctant superstar, adopting the romantic image of a lonesome gunslinger in washed-out denims, something that would eventually be part of his undoing. 'Live by the guitar die by the guitar sort of philosophy, which turned out to be quite prophetic,' says Marr. 'I was such a big fan of him as a teenager. Not only did I enjoy his music and loved his shows, but I kinda clocked him in a way of carrying yourself as a musician… 'To walk on stage and with no pretensions just blow the roof off the place. 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'Even my family were touched by it. My family, they knew his stuff because I used to play it so much as a kid. 'As a parent myself I know what that's like. It becomes a touchstone for your family.' Gallagher was famed for his raw energy shows in the 1970s. Marr was a dedicated disciple. As a teenager, he slept in train stations after going to see Gallagher play and walked home from Manchester city centre to the suburbs of Wythenshawe. 'And it being Manchester it was raining,' he laughs. 'But that was because I wanted to stay back and get an autograph after the show and he gave me a guitar pick.' Between 1971 and 1979 Gallagher released eight studio albums with a mixture of powerhouse and acoustic blues in a period of ferocious creativity. The music is hard-wired into Marr's soul. 'What you pick up in your formative years stays with you,' he says. 'I didn't quite realise it in the '80s because my head was on new agendas, but as you get older you identify things. 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'I was working on a The The session when I heard. It was just really sad.' Gary Moore, Adam Clayton, The Edge, Ronnie Drew and John Sheahan were among the mourners at the funeral in Cork. A telegram from Bob Dylan which arrived too late was read out in the church: 'Get well quick, with God's speed, and keep playing.' In a 1976 interview for the Irish Times, Gallagher told Joe Breen he wanted to write film scores, screenplays and a concept album in the future. 'Most of all, I would like to envisage myself at 60 years of age like Muddy [Waters]…' he said. 'If I can affect people like he affects me at that age, I'll be happy.' Sadly it wasn't to be. 'I think had he got through the difficult period in music near the end of his life, I think he would've enjoyed a new chapter,' says Marr. 'You could imagine him being on the Jools Holland show every couple of years, playing at the Albert Hall. You could imagine him having the same kind of career as Bonnie Raitt. Or Nick Lowe. 'Someone who could've comfortably got into his vintage years, but there was just a weird curve that happened in the '80s and '90s that made him estranged from popular music. 'I think that's what happened. It sort of rocked him a bit. Had he got round that corner who knows what might've happened.' But the music lives on. Last weekend the annual Rory Gallagher Festival took place in Ballyshannon and blues great Joe Bonamassa will play Gallagher's music for three nights in Cork next month. A new statue of Gallagher was unveiled outside the Ulster Hall in Belfast earlier this year and a road will soon be named in his honour in Cork. His faithful Fender Stratocaster was also donated to the National Museum of Ireland after being sold at auction for more than €1million. It will go on display at Collins Barracks in September. Marr has played the signature Strat a number of times, including one memorable night at Shepherd's Bush Empire in London. 'It caused quite a stir with the band and crew, it was like Excalibur had arrived,' he laughs. He owns another of his hero's old guitars – a bronze Silvertone 1415 which Gallagher used on A Million Miles Away. 'One of my prized possessions.' Over the years he's introduced the likes of Noel Gallagher and Bernard Butler to the Ballyshannon bluesman's music. Marr and his wife Angie have two grown-up children, Sonny and Nile, and Rory is part of their lives too. When Marr played in Athy, Limerick and Donegal last year it seemed like the perfect opportunity for a Johnny Marr Irish Tour '24 album. 'Why didn't I think of that?' he says, laughing. 'I might have to do some shows for that – Irish Tour '26!' Make it happen, Johnny. All you need is a guitar and maybe an amp. They might even let you borrow the one in Collins Barracks again.
