How do you write a book when you have the reading age of a seven-year-old?

Hannah Daly approached the writing of her autobiography as she has approached so many other challenges in her life – with determination and perseverance.

How do you write a book when you have the reading age of a seven-year-old? The short answer is with great difficulty, the long answer is an odyssey which has taken eight years.

Daly has dyspraxia and sensory processing disorder, along with dyslexia.

Dyspraxia is difficulty with fine and gross motor skills, such picking up spoons, tying your shoelaces, or buttoning or unbuttoning clothes. Sensory processing disorder (SPD) is oversensitivity to stimuli such as bright lights and loud sound. Her third condition, dyslexia, is the best-known. This means having trouble reading and writing, and her dyslexia is towards the severe end of the spectrum. The three conditions are linked. Daly first conceived of recording her struggles in 2014 and started making voice notes which were typed up by a support worker. In the next seven years she had four children, and then returned to the project a year ago.

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She made more voice notes, worked with an editor to put them into a readable form and got her husband to read the extracts back to her. When publishers passed on the book, she was not deterred, and published Knowing No Boundaries herself (see knowingnoboundaries.com for info). The book is distinguished by an absence of self-pity and a desire to overcome the odds, however daunting they might seem.

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“I hope the book highlights the importance of valuing everyone. If you want something, it can be achieved. I hope people will take something from this positive; not negative things,” the 38-year-old writes in the prelude. “Over the years, I have learnt to work with what I’ve got, and avoid focusing on what I don’t have. It was with the right support that I have brought this book to fruition.”

Daly grew up in Glasnevin before moving with her parents and three siblings to a small bungalow in north County Dublin. At school she could memorise stories, and so a diagnosis of dyslexia came slowly. She was bullied in one school in which she was perceived to be different - her classmates even had a “I hate Hannah” campaign. She was eventually diagnosed as being profoundly dyslexic, but the understanding and empathy towards neurodiverse people did not exist in the same way then.

Motivation is massive. I was motivated to achieve things. That’s why I went to London at the age of 18

—  Hannah Daly

At age 10 she went to Catherine McAuley National School in Baggot Street, which specialises in helping pupils with learning difficulties. For a 10-year-old to take two buses every day into the city centre would be difficult, but for one who could only read timetables with great difficulty, it was even more so. She completed secondary school and did her Junior and Leaving Certificate using a reader and a scribe.

At 18, she went to London to study the performing arts at the London Metropolitan University. “Learn your lines and don’t bump into the furniture,” was the advice Noël Coward offered budding actors.

When you are dyxpraxic and dyslexic, both of these goals are challenging.

“I was always going to be an actress, that’s what drove me to go to school,” Daly explains. “Motivation is massive. I was motivated to achieve things. That’s why I went to London at the age of 18. It is crazy now when you think about It. I had no support in university for ages, I couldn’t do my essays. It was very challenging and liberating to understand yourself and your body. Once I cracked the system and academic essays, I was okay.”

In the days before audiobooks, she would send her text books to her mother, who would dictate them on to cassette tapes and send them back. After four years, she returned to Ireland not to become an actress, but to do drama workshops for youth at risk.

In 2008, at the age of 22, Daly’s life changed when she won the Dublin Rose of Tralee competition and represented the capital in the live final. She was one of the most high-profile roses in the competition because of her condition, and the experience transformed her profile. She was invited to speak to children with similar diagnosis and their parents. Her first talk was with Nobel Prize winner Sir Clive Grainger in front of 1,000 secondary school children in Co Kerry.

The Rose of Tralee also provided other opportunities. Being 5ft 8in tall and of naturally slim build, she joined a modelling agency. Her most high-profile shoot was also her most anonymous – hers is the female hand on the cover of The Script’s 2010 album Science & Faith.

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“The Script was huge and my hand was everywhere. I think it’s quite poignant that the hands that struggled with writing, tying shoe laces and holding cutlery were now, even with my scar, being shown everywhere. It was probably the biggest modelling job that I was booked for,” she writes in Knowing No Boundaries.

Having worked for years running social skills workshops and advocating for people with disabilities, Daly decided to retrain as an occupational therapist (OT) in London, a job she does now. By the time she got around to doing the MSc in Occupational Therapy, technology had moved on and accessing books was so much easier.

I realised that if I took an hour each week, the world would not stop turning and my family would cope

—  Hannah Daly

In 2008, her brother Stuart was diagnosed with a complex and rare disorder and she writes in moving and often graphic detail about the challenges of being a bone marrow donor for him. Another brother, Killian, also had a complex medical condition, and his health got progressively worse over the years.

Tragically, both of her brothers died within nine months of each other, Killian in July 2019, and Stuart in April 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic. When Stuart died she was seven months pregnant with her fourth child. Stuart’s funeral was limited to an attendance of 10 people. “It was awful. It didn’t feel real: no hugs, no celebration of his life,” she recalled.

The deaths of two of her brothers feels like a gut punch coming at the end of such a hopeful and inspirational book. With four very young children to look after, Daly initially didn’t have time to mourn them properly, but a bereavement counsellor encouraged her to take time out for himself. “I finished my sessions and realised that if I took an hour each week, the world would not stop turning and my family would cope.”

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She cautions that her life is not a triumph over adversity because the adversity continues. “I’m still dyslexic. I still can’t read, there are things that I could never do. Motivation is key, everybody has a capacity to achieve what they want to achieve with the right reframing of attitudes.

“You only get one life, as I know only too well. When things happen us in life you always have a choice. It might not be what he want, but we always have a choice.”