Donal Toolan's story - Access to Historic Buildings
Channel: National Disability Authority
Date: 2012-06-01

This video was produced for the Access to Heritage Conference that took place on 30th May 2012 at the Law Society, Blackhall Place, Dublin 7. This conference was jointly hosted by the National Disability Authority and the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. The conference presentations can be found on the NDA website at http://www.nda.ie. The other videos in this set can be found by searching for the tag accesstoheritageconference2012. The transcript for this video is available below.

Donal Toolan's story -- Access to Historic Buildings
My name is Donal Toolan and I have a disability which has meant that I have a lifetime of experience of trying to navigate the built environment.
I can think of one wonderful example --in Boston. It's called the State Building, which is in the centre of Boston and has a huge significance in terms of the story of the United States. And, I kind of looked at it from the outside and I thought 'Damn, I'm not going to be able to get in here' and this young woman came out and said 'Are you trying to gain access?' -- She suddenly constructed in from of my eyes, a very simple and basic, electronically-operated lift. She took out the four 'dooberies' and it literally stuck into a part of the pavement outside, which -- for all intents and purposes could have looked like what would have been access for goods to go down into the building -- but in-fact it came up! And it accessed the front entrance.
If you look at what's happened in Trinity now, in terms of something as basic as cobble -- the cobble is still there. You still have the sense of the period, and what's beautiful about when you come into Trinity is, you have the sense of going back in time in so many different spaces and that's very pleasant. But the cobble is still there but people can -- you know, I can move across it now, without feeling like I'm on a continuous vibrator -- you know, bumping me all over the place.
I remember protesting outside Iveagh House and being part of a campaign demonstrating its lack of access, and ran into a whole kerfuffle - it was 20 years ago as well - around that. Now you look at it and you can go into the building because of what they achieved from an access point there.
I'm not saying everybody has to go in the same entrance when people are accessing sites of heritage -- but you go in a separate entrance, and the building - somebody has to find the key to the separate entrance. And, I think that's what people need to think about. It's not just a matter of planning process, build the accessible, preserve the conservation aspect of it -- but then lock it? Or use it as a storage site - or it's where everybody parks their motorbikes and their what-have-you's. So because you've separated it, it becomes not perceived as - what the public are accessing -- because 'Oh yeah, that's the disabled access'...
I think an urgency and a consciousness not just for the reasons of attracting disabled or ageing tourists, or ensuring that citizens here can access those buildings as they age, but because it's the right thing to do, yeah - that it is the right thing to do.