"Dyslexic people are always on guard because they're always conscious they're going to be caught", hotelier John Brennan tells me over the phone. "They're always trying to be a step ahead and predict what's going to happen because they don't want to be caught."
He gives a simple example. Five years ago, while attending a wedding in Italy with his wife and a small wedding party of just 12 other people, he was suddenly surprised with a job from the groom: to do the first reading. "Now, that to me was like a death sentence", he says.
"Nine times out of ten, if you gave me that sheet of passage to read I'll read it, no problem. But to put a gun to your head and to be put in that position, your blood goes cold."
"The very first question he asked me was, 'When you open a book, what do you see?' And I said to him, 'nothing', which was a wrong answer, because I do see something. I see a page of letters. But what I really see is a puzzle, like you would see when you open up those word puzzles where you look for words horizontally and vertically, and diagonally."
Brennan can easily recall both the years before he was diagnosed, and the watershed moment of finally having a name for what he'd experienced.
"Everything I did was as a result of dyslexia"
— RTÉ One (@RTEOne) September 17, 2024
Lost For Words, a powerful new documentary highlighting the incredible journeys of Irish people of all ages living with dyslexia. #LostForWords, Wednesday at 9.35pm pic.twitter.com/4mZgRzLE2d
Speaking about going to be diagnosed by a visiting specialist, he says, "I went in those doors stupid. That's the label that was on me, because I never did an exam, never achieved an exam in my life, never got the best of anything in the class, was never even in the top 50% of people in the class, and I just didn't rank in the school."
Today, however, he says he's "much, much better". "I really don't have an issue anymore, to be honest with you, except in concentration", he adds, saying he'll prefer to be told what's in a document or a report instead of reading it. "Just tell me what's in it, because I don't have the concentration ability to read it."
That said, the old wariness Brennan felt in childhood hasn't gone away, and is something he feels will always stick around. "You still carry that cross", he says, but is quick to add: "You are much better off with that, that you can cope with and that you can learn to live with, than something else that has a horrendous impact on your life, be it an injury or something of that nature.
"As far as I'm concerned, the way your brain thinks from a dyslexic point of view, makes you achieve things much easier than other people."
Brennan points to a particular memory during the first round of restrictions after the outbreak of Covid-19: bringing forward a 1.5 million refurbishment to the Park Hotel Kenmare, while also buying and refurbishing another new hotel.
Dyslexia, he believes, has given him a "headstrong ambition to get that job done", a quality he sees in other people with the condition. "I think it is an ability to achieve built in from the day you were four years of age, when you were stuck in a class. When the others in the class were ahead of you, you were always trying to fight from the rear, trying to get there."
Speaking about the experience of young people with dyslexia today compared to his own, Brennan says, "I do think there is a gulf between what I experienced in the school and what those kids in the documentary experienced in school. I think the supports are much better today than the way when I was there."
However, he stresses that he feels "dreadfully disappointed that the only game in town is the curriculum, and the only game for the curriculum is points", and calls for more avenues for people to progress down, such as apprenticeships.
"While they may be doing very well in their own world, the system doesn't let them get into it", he feels. "Because you could have a superb surgeon, you could have a superb architect, you could have a superb attorney, you could have a fantastic engineer. But because they don't make those 485 or 610 points, they ain't going anywhere."
In his opinion, he says, "It's still an extremely difficult place in which to progress because the system system is against you".
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