Christy Brown

Christy Brown (5 June 1932 – 7 September 1981) was an Irish author, painter and poet who suffered from cerebral palsy. He is most famous for his autobiography My Left Foot, which was later made into an Academy Award-winning film of the same name.

Biography

Christy Brown was born in the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin in the summer of 1932 to a working-class Irish family. After his birth, doctors discovered that he was severely afflicted by cerebral palsy, a serious neurological disorder which left him almost entirely paralyzed. Though urged to commit him to a convalescent hospital, Brown's parents were unswayed and subsequently determined to raise him at home with their other children. During Brown's adolescence, social worker Katrina Delahunt became aware of his story and began to visit the Brown family regularly, while bringing Christy himself books and painting materials as he had, for years, demonstrated impressive physical dexterity by writing and drawing with the only limb over which he had any precise control - his left leg.Jordan, Anthony J. (1998). Christy Brown's Women: A Biography Drawing on His Letters. Westport Books. p. 20-21. ISBN 978-0952444732. Brown quickly matured into a serious artist.

Although Brown received almost no formal schooling during his youth, he did attend St Brendan's School-Clinic in Sandymount intermittently. At St. Brendan's he came in contact with Dr. Robert Collis, a noted author. Collis discovered that...
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