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  4. Living in an institution in Ireland - in my own words

Living in an institution in Ireland - in my own words

Jean Wright, Bill Roberts and Carol Hamilton

Bill Roberts' abstract

A colour head and shoulders of Bill Roberts

The title of my presentation is 'Reflections on One's Life'. It has four parts. Each part is about living my life in Ireland.

  • Part One is about my first memories, my Mum, Dad and family, getting up to devilment and going to the day school.
  • Part Two is about living at the residential school. I will talk about how I went to the school, what happened to me while I was at the school: the loneliness, the bullying and the running away.
  • Part Three is about what happened to me after I left the school. I will talk about being in a workshop, a day care-centre and going to counselling.
  • In Part Four, I will talk about my present work as a rights activist. I will talk about being involved with the Labour Party disability group, working on the Rights Project, the Inclusive Research Network and the anti-bullying group.

Carol Hamilton's abstract

I am working at the National Institute of Intellectual Disability on the life-story project. I am gathering life-stories from older people with learning disabilities. I will talk about working with Bill to tell his life-story and to put his story onto a website. I will also talk about working with other people in Ireland as part of this project.

Contact us

About the Group

If you woud like to get in touch with the Social History of Learning Disability (SHLD) Research Group, please contact:

Liz Tilley 
Chair of the Social History of Learning Disability (SHLD) Research Group
School of Health, Wellbeing and Social Care
Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies
The Open University
Walton Hall
Milton Keynes
MK7 6AA

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