Nathalie O'Brien: 'No deaf person should feel they are held back'
Nathalie O’Brien is praying her name will not be called out. Sat beside her dad, Fergus, and mam, Michelle, in the RTÉ studios in Donnybrook, Nathalie is agonising at the thought of being declared the winner. If ever she was content to miss out on victory, this is it. Then comes the announcement, whipping up a mixture of dread and delight, that the FAI Football For All International player of the year is Nathalie O’Brien.
“All the cameras focused on me and, in that moment, I became incredibly nervous,” recalls the Cork City centre-half of her March win.
The Football For All award, introduced in the early noughties, recognises the achievements of those who have not allowed their disability to prevent them from playing — and succeeding in — the beautiful game. O’Brien, who was born deaf and lived in a world of silence until the age of six, is the perfect poster girl.
Here is someone who, rather than being held back by impaired hearing, has made more than 100 competitive appearances for Cork City, pocketed an FAI Cup winners medal in 2017, played in a Champions League final, and wore the green of Ireland at a European Championships.
Having made her way on stage to accept the crystal from former Republic of Ireland international Olivia O’Toole, O’Brien, knowing a couple of questions are about to be fired in her direction, grows uncomfortable.
“When I realised my category was being shown live on television, I was actually praying my name wouldn’t be called out,” says the 27-year-old, as we reflect on her St Patrick’s Day success in Cork’s River Lee Hotel, as well as the long and challenging journey which took her into such established company that Sunday evening at Montrose.
The interview on stage was a disaster. She asked me the first question and I blanked. I recovered for the second question but didn’t elaborate. I couldn’t wait to get off the stage. I ran back off it.
“I don’t like talking in front of big groups of people. Most of the time, people would be like, sorry, please say that again, and then you’re like, oh my god, they can’t understand me because of my speech. You have to repeat yourself and I’d be conscious of that.”
And yet, we put it to her that she has spent her entire life forcing herself out of her comfort zone.
“Maybe, but it is only the last couple of years where I’ve started to realise this is who I am, this isn’t something that has to hold me back, be proud of yourself and what you are after achieving in life.”
Nathalie O’Brien, to use her own words, was born profoundly deaf. No such diagnosis, though, was made until she was 18 months old. What first alerted her parents to the possibility that something might be amiss with their daughter was that every time they spoke face-to-face with her, Nathalie would respond by way of facial expression or arm gesture, but if they made a noise when she could not see them, she’d not respond at all.
Hearing aids were prescribed, but they were no use. For an aid to work, she tells us, you need some semblance of hearing. Her world, however, was completely silent and would remain so for the first six years of her existence.
“My parents did everything they could but there was nothing that worked for me. I used to get so frustrated during those years. My speech, at four and five, was shocking. Only mam and dad could understand me. I’d be trying to get the words out but they wouldn’t come out. I used to get so mad that I’d bang my head off the floor with frustration.”
The game-changer was her aunt stumbling upon an article about the cochlear implant, an electronic medical device that replaces the function of the damaged inner ear. Deemed a suitable candidate, she underwent six-hour surgery at Beaumont Hospital.
“All my hair was shaved off, they basically cut open my head and inserted the implants.”
A few months later, after the swelling had reduced, the O’Briens returned to Dublin to have Nathalie’s implants turned on for the first time.
“It was like, boom. Sound. So many different sounds. A lot of kids start crying when their aid is turned on first because they get a fright. I just started asking loads of questions. I remember pointing at the radio and asking, what’s that. Everywhere I went, there was a new sound. It took years to get used to.”
Going against the advice of the professionals who suggested she be sent to a deaf school, Nathalie’s mother was adamant her daughter would have as normal an upbringing as possible and so enrolled her at Sunday’s Well primary school. That tied in with Nathalie’s determination to be able to communicate through the spoken word, as opposed to sign language.
Every Tuesday after school, a taxi would ferry her up to what was then St Mary’s Orthopaedic Hospital in Gurranabraher for an hour-long speech therapy session.
“I hated it,” she recalls, “even if it was well worth it in the long-term. Every day after school, my mom would sit me up on the counter. She’d be peeling the poppies and I’d practise the words. That is where I really improved.
“A lot of people that would have been in my situation would have wound up doing sign language. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against sign. I just prefer talking.
“Given I couldn’t speak until I was six, I had a lot of catching up to do so that is why my accent is a small bit different (there are a few occasions throughout the interview where Nathalie, presuming I won’t be able to understand a particular word she wants to say, takes the pen and notepad in front of me and writes it down).
“My classmates in primary school made life so easy for me, but I had challenges during secondary school. I dropped out of Irish and French. My resource teacher at Mount Mercy, Eileen Harrington, got me through secondary school. She was amazing.”
By this stage, football had become a central focus. Tagging along with her dad to his weekend games was a rather simple introduction to the game and yet she quickly became hooked, requesting, at the age of 10, that she too be allowed kick ball inside the four white lines.
Her graph quickly rose, so much so that in her Leaving Cert year she was offered a scholarship to the University of Pikeville, Kentucky. Shortly before she was to head back Stateside for her second year, Chris O’Mahony from Cork Women’s FC (now Cork City) got in touch to inquire would she come out to training. The plane ticket was never used. Seven years on, she remains part of the defensive furniture at their Curraheen base.
“The best memory I have is, of course, the FAI Cup final win in the Aviva in 2017. That was one of the best days of my life.”
As well as her Cork City commitments, the side are currently sixth in the Women’s National League, O’Brien, a personal trainer by day, also lines out for the Doncaster and Ireland deaf futsal teams (futsal is the five-a-side variation of football played on a hard court indoors). The national side, of which she is a central cog, will compete at the fourth World deaf futsal championships in Switzerland this September.
When I was 13, my dad got a message to know would I be interested in joining the Irish deaf futsal team. I scored during my first cap against Holland, even though we got hammered. But the set-up fell apart shortly after that as coaches departed and there was no one to take it over.
Dave Bell coming on board in recent years breathed new life into the set-up, with Ireland reaching the quarter-finals of last year’s European championships, thus qualifying for this year’s Worlds. It was while lining out for her country that O’Brien came onto the radar of Mark Sinclair, a coach with the Doncaster deaf futsal team, who asked if she’d join up with the English club.
O’Brien, of course, jumped at the offer. Her maiden tournament with Doncaster was a fourth-place finish at the 2018 Champions League. They’d reach the final of the 2019 edition in Stuttgart, with O’Brien named player of the tournament.
“When we are playing in deaf competitions, we have to switch off our hearing aids. I hate being without it. I try and lip read, whereas everyone else on the team is using sign language. Mind you, when I’m with Cork City, it is so much harder because there are noises coming from everywhere. Instructions are being shouted to me but I can’t hear them as they’re not clear.”
Given these many fences she’s had to navigate, is she proud of the road she’s forged for herself?
“I am a personal trainer and given I work with new people every day, I am pushing myself out of my comfort zone to make me a better person. I’m proud of that.
“Years ago, if someone mentioned the word disability, I’d be like, don’t talk to me about that. I’d say, why me, why am I deaf? Now, basically, I don’t give a shit. No deaf person should feel they are being held back. Go out and do whatever you want to do. I wish I told myself that years ago. Better later than never, I suppose.”
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