When he reached his eighties his vision had deteriorated so rapidly that he could see nothing except the difference between light and dark. Now he was totally dependent on others to read to him; and chiefly on Eileen, who was everything to him, even more than she had been before. The width of his life contracted accordingly. When he could no longer read they reduced the daily newspapers to The Times and one Dublin paper. Those were all Eileen had time to read in addition to parts of books and articles in periodicals that contained thing he wanted to know about. He depended on the radio for daily news. But he never surrendered. He remembered that Beethoven wrote his greatest symphonies when he was deaf; that Prescott was half-blind when he wrote History of the Conquest of Mexico and that Renoir went on painting when he was so rheumatic that he had to tie the brush to his hand. O'Casey kept on learning about music and other things by listening to instructive programs on BBC radio. He never considered himself too old to be instructed about anything from any source. Although he had plenty of pride he was never too proud to learn something new.

Extract from Sean O'Casey From Times Past