Liam Grier interview, copyright Victoria Mary Clarke, 2002

            I don’t often grab strange men in the street and ask for their phone numbers, but Liam Grier is an exception.  I spotted him in George’s street the other day and absolutely had to stop him.  He was tall and striking, wearing and a pair of jeans  with flowers painted on them, a long denim coat, and a t-shirt which said “Fuck me I’m Famous”.  Who wouldn’t have stopped him?  But even though I kept yelling at him, he didn’t turn around, just kept walking.  Which is why I had to physically assault him, to get his number.  When he did turn around, he explained that he’s deaf and if I did want to interview him, I would have to send a text message.  Which I did.  He’s in my living room now, wearing another of his own designs, this time the t-shirt says “Fuck off”. 
Liam’s a fashion designer, it turns out, and he made the costumes for this year’s Rose of Tralee, Paula Glynn.  A fabulous orange knitted dress, with a pattern of big circles all over it.  ‘It was soooo beautiful,” he says modestly.  ‘Her mother thinks the world of me, she rolls out the red carpet whenever I visit.”  Needless to say, the Rose didn’t have anything rude written on her dress.  But Liam wore this same t-shirt he’s wearing now to the drinks party which the Rose organisers threw to say thank you to everyone who helped. 
“It was a really stuffy party and everyone was really polite,” he says, giggling.  “All dressed up to the nines.  And I walked in and everyone was like “Oh my God, who are you?’  I said I’m a fashion designer, thank you very much!  They deleted the writing on my shirt for the local papers, I was disgusted.”
Liam has a lovely bag, which I comment on.  It was bought for him by a friend.  His friends know to get him unusual things to wear, he says, because he’s always liked to be different from the crowd.
“Maybe it’s because I come from a large family.  Eleven of us and we were always trying to outdo each other.  I’ve done it by being artistic.”
The clothes are all knitted, some on a computerised knitting machine, which he would like to buy, if it didn’t cost ninety grand.  At the moment, he’s trying to find funding, to buy one of his own.   He did sell his creations in the Powerscourt Townhouse Centre, but it was too expensive, so now he’s opening his own shop, in Donegal.  When I ask him how old he is, he says he’s twenty one plus VAT and he’s been knitting  since he was nineteen, but making clothes for as long as he can remember.  When he was a kid, he remembers, he drew around his hands and then sewed the material together, to make gloves.  When he left school, he went to Limerick School of Art, where he was one of only two men, so there was a lot of competition. 
“Because of my disability, I had to prove myself harder than the other guy!  So we had constant battles and I had to be the best.  I did prove myself, though, I got a distinction and first class honours.”
Liam’s deafness is hereditary, his mother is deaf, and he began to lose hearing from the age of seven.
“  I do recall being able to hear a clock ticking, when I was a kid, but then it just got worse and worse, as I went through school.  Secondary school was a disaster, I had no interest in it, I just used to draw all the time.  I was able to cope with National school, because we had one teacher to thirty pupils, but in Secondary school there was four hundred of us.  I lost a lot of my confidence.  When you see me now, I’m very confident, but if you had seen me when I was seventeen years old I was so shy!  I wouldn’t talk about my deafness, if somebody asked a question in class, I would hide, rather than say anything about it.  I didn’t want to be laughed at.  It happened a few times and it nearly killed me.  But when I went to college, I became my own person.”
Being deaf hasn’t proved to be a disadvantage, though, career-wise.
“To be honest, it’s never held me back, being deaf, it’s actually opened doors for me.  People remember me because I’m a little bit eccentric and I’m deaf.  I stood out more, at college, because of it.  I won all kinds of awards.  I don’t think it was favouritism though, I was confident that my clothes were good.  I also did deaf programmes, on television and the fashion programmes would see me doing them.  I got a lot of customers that way.  Even you!  After I told you that you would have to send me a text message because I wouldn’t be able to hear you, you rang me!  I couldn’t believe it, I thought I’ll just wait a while and she’ll text me, and you did.  Thank God!”
Can he not talk on the phone with his hearing aids?
“No.  It’s like white noise.  I send texts, I don’t let it affect me.”
Did he learn to lip-read?
“I picked it up from my mum. I look at your face when you are talking to me and you probably don’t even notice.  Lots of my friends forget that I’m deaf.”
For a deaf person who’s as fashion conscious as Liam is, wearing hearing aids was difficult at first.
“I’ve only worn the hearing aids for eight months now. I just didn’t think I could wear them because people would look at me.  It’s like some people won’t wear glasses. I wear glasses for work, I have no bother wearing them, but it was different with the hearing aids, I had bought them for a long time, before I got around to wearing them.  My little nephew is deaf, he’s two years old and he wears them and I decided I was just being stupid. Now I wear them all the time.”  
The hearing aids were very expensive, but Liam says they are worth it.  He’s infectiously appreciative of the ability to hear and would recommend them to anyone who’s deaf  and worried about how they look.
“Seven hundred pounds each, they were!  I saw an advertisement  in a magazine, one day and I thought I’d send off for the information.  The next thing I knew there was a salesman at my door and I just got carried away and suddenly I had them and I’d paid for them and I wasn’t even sure I would wear them!  But I absolutely love them now.  I’ve always gone to clubs and I would be the first person on the dance floor, because I could feel the music, even if I couldn’t hear it.  But it’s so fantastic now I can hear the tunes!  If I could wear them in the shower, I would!  Listening to music, hearing birds sing, hearing the sea, it’s so beautiful!  I’m sorry I missed out on all that now.”