THE CONVERSATIONS WE should be having about living in Dublin and throughout Ireland are questioning the lack of changing places and bathrooms for disabled adults and children.

The conversations we should be having about living and working in Ireland are about accommodation and rents.

The need for safe supervised injecting facilities should be a continuous conversation.

We need to talk about racism in connection with migrants who are being exploited and are working three or four jobs, all under the minimum wage.

Dialogues relating to access and cultural status for people with disabilities and ethnic minorities also need to be on the agenda. 

We should be listening to people who live or have lived in direct provision centres.

Within the housing crisis large cohorts of our population get ignored – this includes young disabled people who get warehoused into nursing homes.

In the private sector some landlords won’t take anyone on rent allowance.

The rates of suicide among Travellers are eight times higher than the general population.

We don’t need conversations, we need interventions.

Questions about why we are building so many big hotels in the city when accessible Arts venues are becoming unsustainable because of high rents.

What are big corporate conglomerates contributing to the cultural and artistic life of this town?

Contentious Spaces

Every space of my life seems to be contentious one way or another. This piece has been ruminating in my head for a long time.

For the past three years grief and burying a lot of my friends has become a feature. As time moves on, and wading my way through the grief, my writing suffered.

The page was a continual blank. My imagination had vanish, fear of living and writing was killing me. After staying at home for nearly a year, going out felt difficult.

Trying to order a cup of coffee. In the coffee shop four people tried to understand what my order was. My nerves took over. Such a simple task. Losing my capacity terrified me.

That feeling of invisibility had taken over. My life felt worthless. In order to get some privacy and to try and pull myself together, finding a disabled toilet. It was locked. It took a while to find the person with the key.

While in the space, came into my head the play became more vivid, more tangible. Taking out my phone, looking around the bathroom, sketching notes. Contentious Spaces seemed to have a possibility.

Contentious Spaces is about two wheelchair users who get trapped in a bathroom. The space is tight and full of tension.

One is a middle-aged woman, a former activist who sees herself as a fading poster girl. She explains the struggle to have access to a disabled toilet was very much part of her history. The fact that they still remain genderless without sanitary products, condom machines and have no mirror still infuriates her.

She reminds her new friend that disabled toilets are more likely to be used as store rooms. The younger character is a trans person. They fight over the space. Who has the right to use what toilet.

All spaces that humans inhabit are contentious. Public toilets are bizarre places. People use the space in many ways and for private reasons. They have a history of segregation, often violence.

In America it was not so long ago when black people were designated a separate toilet from white people. In my lifetime in schools and training workshops or day centres there were always segregated toilets for service users.

It’s a marker of citizenship and participation when the issue of hierarchy in relation to toilets are part of the public conversation. More choices around accessible and non binary toilets are needed throughout the city.

ThisisPopBaby want authenticity for their upcoming Where We Live Festival. My speech impediment prevents me from doing many things. For Contentious Spaces I’ll be reading one of the parts. Philly McMahon and Jenny Jennings and their team don’t seem to get too hung up about diversity or access issues.

It seems to happen in a practical natural way. They treat me as a writer. The issue of physical access is not made my problem. The aesthetics of access is core to Where We Live festival 2020.

Where We Live gives us all an opportunity to talk and reflect upon what is happening on our streets.

Alternative or hidden voices are given a microphone.

Contentious Spaces is Rosaleen McDonagh’s work-in-progress piece at Where We Live Festival 2020 (as part of St Patrick’s Festival), running at Project Arts Centre (Thursday 19 Mar) as part of the festival’s Off Plan programme. See more at the website.