Diarmuid's Story

Diarmuid from one of the Actionnaires clubs recently proved his determination not to let his sight loss stop him from achieving his goals.

Diarmuid has little sight in his right eye and nothing in his left due to an accident when he was aged just four. He attends a mainstream school where opportunities for taking part in sports are limited for him due to the supervision he would need. His specialist teacher put him in touch with the Actionnaires team two years ago, and he has been attending his local club ever since.

Actionnaires allows Diarmuid to take part in sports that he doesn’t normally get to do, such as archery and rugby. As he’s playing with children like himself, the pace is just right and he has the confidence to take part - in school the pace is just too fast.

Diarmuid says: "Actionnaires is done in a way that makes it easy for blind people to do. Not all the activities are at the Sports Centre, we often do other things like going away to a climbing wall. It’s good fun and you get to meet up with your friends. We went swimming with Actionnaires last month, it was brilliant; I especially loved the slide! Sometimes we have to push ourselves and it can be a bit of a challenge but it’s not too hard, it’s just enough."

Recently Diarmuid took part in a National schools competition in Tornby organised by British Blind Sport, where he swam in the 25m breast stroke and the 25m front crawl. He managed to get first place in both races - a fantastic achievement!

Diarmuid’s future plans range from becoming a nature expert to running a shop, and from becoming a scientist to being a gold medallist. Fingers crossed we will see him in the 2012 paralympics!