It was very sad to hear about yesterday’s passing of John McCarthy, founder of Mad Pride Ireland and passionate mental health activist.

The first time I encountered John he pretty much hijacked a meeting on suicide prevention in the Mansion House where the meeting Chair asked him to get off his “soap box” and row in behind everyone else. From what I observed over the following years John never did get off that soap box.

Arranged a meeting

I contacted John last September by email to see if we could meet up for a chat about mental health and within minutes he replied “call me”. So I called him. Within a week or so we had arranged a time for me to call to his house and have a chat. John knew that I was studying under Lydia Sapouna in UCC, someone John worked with and admired, and he also knew I worked in the HSE in the past.

Compelling views

I had a sense from radio interviews (especially on the Last Word with Matt Cooper) that John’s views around mental health and madness were continually refined over the years and as time went on I became more and more interested in what he had to say – it was increasingly compelling. So, on that rainy Friday in September when he welcomed me in to his home I wasn’t quite sure how the conversation would unfold but I looked forward to it with an open and eager mind.

Shifting conversation

I sat at John’s bedside in his wheelchair for two hours of roller-coaster conversation and by the time I left I have to admit I was rattled. Things started well. When I told John of my “establishment” past in the HSE he pointed out excitedly that I was “like an ex-priest”. As the conversation developed we veered from open two-way discussion, through to John reading some of his poetry to me and berating me for being in a comfort zone, my eyes closed to the abuses people were experiencing in mental health services.

Human rights

At one point in our meeting John showed me a book on warfare tactics, the most resounding evidence of John’s role as a staunch activist – he was clear on his mission, unyielding in his passion to achieve that mission of human rights for the “mad community”.

I don’t think John was won over about my argument that the creation of “otherness” in the guise of the “mad community” has the potential to deflect from the vital importance of mental health as part of the human experience generally. But he did shake my hand at the end of the meeting and we promised to keep in touch around mental health issues.

What matters?

Those of us working in mental health often debate about the best approach to influencing positive change, the language we should use, the audiences we should speak to. In many ways, those issues don’t matter in the wider scheme of things.

What really does make a difference is the presence of loud, clear, passionate mental health voices that refuse to shut up. We lost one of those voices this week, but his legacy will definitely live on. If John’s identity became wrapped in the cause of the mad community, it also remained strong around his sense of place. On one of his recent radio interviews John recited a poem about his city of Cork where he repeated the line “…and the city becomes a village”.

Celebrating madness

On warm and sunny Sunday afternoons in Fitzgerald’s Park in the heart of the city, where John celebrated Mad Pride every year, I’m sure we’ll continue to celebrate madness and pay tribute to John for many years to come.