{"id":24936,"date":"2026-03-20T11:26:37","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T10:26:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/?p=24936"},"modified":"2026-03-20T11:26:37","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T10:26:37","slug":"they-said-i-would-never-walk-i-took-to-the-skies-instead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/2026\/03\/they-said-i-would-never-walk-i-took-to-the-skies-instead\/","title":{"rendered":"They Said I Would Never Walk, I Took To The Skies Instead"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Belfast Man Releases Biography After Making History<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

A man who was once told he would likely never walk has launched a memoir after becoming the first disabled pilot to land a plane solo at Belfast International Airport.<\/span><\/p>\n

Matthew Monaghan, from Newtownabbey, has released <\/span>The Weight of Progress<\/span><\/i>, a deeply personal account of life with a rare neuromuscular condition, the barriers he faced growing up, the devastating consequences of a medical procedure that left him fighting for his independence all over again, and the extraordinary journey that eventually saw him take to the skies.<\/span><\/p>\n

The book charts a life shaped by physical limitation but never defined by it. From childhood, Matthew, 36, found himself battling assumptions that disability also meant lack of intelligence.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He writes about having to fight for the right to be educated fairly and for the chance to prove that his ambitions were not unrealistic, just inconvenient to systems that were not built with him in mind.<\/span><\/p>\n

That experience becomes one of the strongest threads in the memoir. In the book he remembers one particular comment his mum made that has always stuck with him: \u201cMatthew, you may not understand yet, but you are being discriminated against.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

It was an early lesson in how easily disabled people can be underestimated, sidelined or made to feel like a problem to be solved rather than a person to be supported.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In his book, Matthew writes candidly about the more subtle humiliations of growing up visibly different, including one sports day moment that stayed with him for years.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI was very young when it happened, probably about six or seven. I remember winning the egg and spoon race and, for a child of that age, it should have been one of the happiest, most proud moments.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNot for me, a teacher had glued the egg to my spoon. The memory of feeling so awfully bad that I had cheated will never leave me. I desperately wanted to play fairly, even if that meant losing the race.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe victory wasn\u2019t mine. It belonged to the glue.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

But <\/span>The Weight of Progress<\/span><\/i> doesn\u2019t rest on one chapter of Matthew\u2019s life. The memoir moves through adolescence, friendships, work, sexuality and independence, showing how prejudice often follows disabled people into every part of life, not just school or healthcare.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The most dramatic section of the book centres on 2015, when Matthew\u2019s life changed suddenly and brutally. Just as adulthood was beginning to feel stable, a routine Botox injection designed to improve his joint flexibility and mobility, which was expected to ultimately improve his balance and walking.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the book Matthew explains how the treatment ironically did the complete opposite and triggered a devastating decline in his health.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Within days, Matthew was clinging on to the life he once knew, he was struggling to walk, breathe and swallow. The collapse left him terrified and desperate for answers.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis wasn\u2019t burnout. This wasn\u2019t just \u2018fatigue\u2019. Something had gone catastrophically wrong\u201d he explained.<\/span><\/p>\n

What followed was not only physical trauma but a prolonged fight to be believed. Matthew was faced with months of fear, hospital visits and dismissal, as well as the anger of his family as his condition worsened.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the book Matthew recounts one particularly confrontational moment when his mother tells a consultant: \u201cHe\u2019s not coping. He can barely walk. He can\u2019t breathe properly. You put this poison in him. What are you going to do about it?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Eventually, a specialist confirmed what Matthew had known in his own body all along. \u201cThis isn\u2019t the natural course of your condition,\u201d he said. \u201cThis looks like a reaction.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

That validation mattered because <\/span>The Weight of Progress<\/span><\/i> is as much about the damage caused by disbelief as it is about physical suffering. For Matthew, talking about the psychological toll of losing the life he had built, the humiliation of dependence, and the slow erosion of confidence that comes when a person is repeatedly told their lived reality is not real was an important part of the story.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI knew my own body, and I knew this wasn’t what I had spent the last 26 years living with, this was new.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s difficult when you are up against medical experts who are not only under pressure themselves, but sometimes consumed and restrained by textbooks, forgetting that sometimes there are exceptions.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe disbelief in my symptoms and reaction was rigid because no one was willing to accept that what was meant to help had harmed.\u00a0 It sounds grim but medicine can harm and everyone makes mistakes, the problem is, I paid the price.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite this, Matthew\u2019s book is not a story of surrender. He believes that out of that collapse came a new and unexpected direction. He went on to apply for a flying scholarship for disabled people, a decision that would alter the course of his life. Flying became more than a hobby or challenge. It became a route back to himself.<\/span><\/p>\n

And, in the book he describes the moment the shift became real: \u201cI was going to learn to fly.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

From there, readers can follow his progress through training, self-doubt and determination to a point that once seemed impossible. In one of the book\u2019s most powerful reflections, he said: \u201cFlying wasn\u2019t just something I wanted to do anymore. It was who I was meant to be.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

That sense of purpose would carry Matthew to one of the defining milestones of his life. In 2025, after years of persistence, adaptation and training, he became the first disabled pilot to land a plane solo at Belfast International Airport. It was a landmark moment, not only for him personally, but for what it represented in terms of access, visibility and ambition.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFrom being told I\u2019d never walk, to walking unaided. From being told life would be small, to becoming a pilot\u201d, said Matthew: \u201cIf this book has done anything, I hope it shows that progress is possible, not just for me, but for anyone staring down their own can\u2019t.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Now a pilot, motivational speaker and growing social media commentator, Matthew is using his story to challenge the assumptions that still shape public attitudes to disability.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Weight of Progress<\/span><\/i> isn\u2019t written as a tidy tale of triumph. It\u2019s a memoir about pain, frustration, identity, exclusion, reinvention and the hard reality that progress often comes at a cost. It\u2019s also a reminder that people are capable of far more than the limits others place on them.<\/span><\/p>\n

Matthew\u2019s book offers readers a rare combination of emotional honesty and hard-won perspective. He hopes it will resonate not only with those living with disability or chronic illness, but with anyone who has had to rebuild after loss, fight to be believed, or find a new way forward when life veers violently off course.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Weight of Progress, published by Excalibur Press, is available now on Amazon.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Belfast Man Releases Biography After Making History A man who was once told he would likely never walk has launched a memoir after becoming the first disabled pilot to land a plane solo at Belfast International Airport. Matthew Monaghan, from Newtownabbey, has released The Weight of Progress, a deeply personal account of life with a … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":24937,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[1948,1792,1946,1947],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24936"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24936"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24938,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24936\/revisions\/24938"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}