City Lives –  Denise McNamara meets Michael Mackey, award-winning Simon Community volunteer

When asked what age he is, Michael Mackey’s response is simple: “I’m 61 and the happiest man in the world.”

The sheer glee in his voice as the Claddagh man answers this question stops you in your tracks. Here is a man who has sunk to the depths of despair and somehow managed to climb out, reaching the pinnacle of a ladder that he could barely have dreamed of.

If ever there was a poster boy for turning your life around, Michael Mackey is it.

This month he was given a national award for his work with the Galway Simon Community. He was honoured in the Social Work category of the Volunteer Ireland Awards and attended a gala awards ceremony at Dublin City Hall.

Michael has brought his two awards along to the interview; one is a framed picture, the other a glass trophy and he beams as he points out the features.

Before meeting Michael for a cuppa in Born Cafe one Wednesday afternoon, I pass by a man in his 40s who is regular street drinker, his foot has been broken and he hobbles along with a walking aid, his face red from the elements, his clothes drenched from the heavy December rain.

I ask him about the guys he once drank with – there were a group of about 20 of them who used to gather in Eyre Square and Shop Street – and whether any of them were inspired to follow in his footsteps. He shakes his head.

“Quite a few of them have died – the vast majority of them. Mainly from the alcohol and the weather,” he says matter of factly.

Michael grew up in a family of fishermen, one of three boys, raised single-handedly by their mother Mary Mackey.

As a youngster he used to do some shell fishing. The minute he had made his Confirmation, he left school. “They didn’t think I could go no further. So I started selling newspapers. The Sentinel. The Tribune. My pitch was in Bohermore on Friday. It was great money. That time all the money went on the tables. Sometimes two shillings went down the stocking but you’d be asked to remove it so you’d keep nothing.”

He graduated to a messenger boy, delivering groceries with McCambridge’s, clothes for Brennan’s, meat for Kirwan’s and hardware for Raftery’s for about five years.

Michael then worked as a labourer with Galway Corporation before polishing glass with Galway Crystal before it closed down in 1979. He got a job on the Docks working on the big oil tanks and it was around that time his problems started to materialise.

“I was alcohol addicted. I was creeping into it. I was missing days. I had no interest in work. I was interested in getting paid but not working. I got sick, between the alcohol and mental health issues, I wasn’t too good.”

It was years later that Michael was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. But back then he blamed it all on a bit too much gargle.

“I was a different personality, a different person. I was saying things and doing things to make out I was someone else. You could be a bank manager, or a movie star. I was so caught up in the alcohol. I was drinking everything I could get my hands on. Anything and everything.”

He had lived with his mother in the Claddagh, but he moved out of his own accord.

“From the time I was became homeless it wasn’t the nightmare some people say. I didn’t like anybody telling me what to do. There used to be two boats opposite Claddagh Church, there was a couple in one and I sheltered in the other, or sometimes under a bench. You have your own routine.

He cannot say how long he remained homeless, but it was a long time. To survive, he took to begging, which he found he had an aptitude for.

“I’d be telling different stories to different people. It was like trying to run a business. I’d sit on the stone seat opposite Claddagh Church and think which way to go, which direction to take. You’d only have to meet one – not 100. Sometimes they’d give you a lot of money, you’d give them some story about trying to stay out of prison, trying to keep your home, sure I was never in trouble with the guards.”

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.

City Lives – Bernie Ní Fhlatharta meets Declan Gibbons, manager of the Galway Film Centre

There’s a thriving film and television industry in the city — so much so that the city has put in a bid to become a UNESCO City of Film.

One of the people behind that bid is Declan Gibbons, a Donegal man who has made his life in Galway where he has worked in the arts for the past three decades.

Declan is the Manager of the Galway Film Centre, which is based in the GMIT’s Cluain Mhuire campus, the art and media hub of the college.

The Centre is not only a resource centre for filmmakers, but is also involved in adult education, some of it involving community groups who make the ID series of short films.

The Centre is hosting its annual Film and TV Seminar this week in the Connemara Coast Hotel where a number of writers and creators of some of television’s most popular shows will be guests, people like the writer/creator of The House of Cards, Beau Willimon.

The series, which stars Kevin Spacey, was Netflix’s first TV venture and like HBO, the pay-per-view channel in the US, they will be producing more shows.

Declan is proud of this year’s line-up and recalls a few years ago inviting the creator of Breaking Bad, Vince Gilligan.

“Honestly we didn’t think he would come. It was Season 3 of Breaking Bad and anyone who watched it loved it. My colleague Mary Deely sent out a hopeful email and low and behold he jumped at the chance.

“As it happened he had never been to the UK or Ireland and he loved it and had a great visit. My biggest claim to fame is that the character in Season Four is named after me! We got on very well,” says Declan.

The seminar is geared at those working in the industry but is open to anyone who wants to pay the cost of attending.

Ireland’s three biggest film production companies will be in attendance and the seminar is now an annual destination where people can come together to not only discuss issues relating to the business, but also network and make contacts.

“We also try to promote Galway as a location. In the West we have the know-how, the trained personnel and crew and we offer technical back-up, studio space and world-class facilities.”

The film and television course in GMIT is a Level 8 course offering an Honours BA degree. Currently there are 30 final year students on the course. And of course there’s another film course on offer across the city in NUI Galway in the Huston School of Film, not to mention hundreds of people working in television a few miles out the road in the Connemara Gaeltacht, many of them who either came through these third level courses or worked their way up through the industry, the same way Declan did.

He smiles remembering his own venture into third level which had nothing to do with TV or film, though he has loved film for as long as he can remember.

His own qualification from NUIG is an MA in Philosophy. A native of Creeslough, he followed his sister to Galway where she was studying medicine.

He was big into music and loved the Galway vibe. He played the guitar and had his own band called The Sleepwalkers. Then he started going to the theatre and loved being exposed to various forms of art.

In fact his first job in Galway was in the box office of the Galway Arts Festival where he met his wife, Frances Burke, with whom he has three children, Katie (22), Jack (21) and Sarah (16). After that he got a job with Macnas as Financial Controller — “No I didn’t have a qualification but I co-managed the festival box office fairly well!” he laughs. He toured the world with Macnas and loved every minute of it.

When Páraic Breathnach left Macnas – the street theatre company he founded – Declan stepped into the role of General Manager, a position he held for nine years doing work, he says, he is still very proud of to this day.

It is not unusual for people within the arts in Galway to move around and it was the same for Declan. His time with Macnas saw him overseeing their transition into more corporate, more commercial work so you could say he had cut his teeth there before landing the job of Managing Director with the Druid Theatre Company.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.

City Lives – Bernie Ní Fhlatharta meets Sarah Smith, sports coach and an advocate of living well
Many people will use the next few weeks as a last ditch effort to lose a few pounds for Christmas, so that the women can fit into party dresses and the men can justify a bit more indulgence! So, it’s timely then that Sarah Smith has published an eBook aimed at those very people – well the women anyway.
The Busy Babe Bootcamp is a 14-day detoxification plan which boasts ‘eat wise – drop a size’. But it is also another way that Sarah can deliver a message she has been sharing for over 13 years in the fitness and health industry. She works as a personal trainer, nutritional advisor, tutor, sports coach and group exercise instructor.
As she says herself, “I just don’t talk the talk, I walk the walk” referring to her own healthy lifestyle and her passion for fitness, especially Kettlebells.
Sarah was one of the first in the West of Ireland to introduce Kettlebells into fitness regimes and she is the only one coaching Kettlebells as a sport. She is self-taught and was in Russia earlier his year as part of the Irish team at a Kettlebell competition, where she secured a gold and silver medal in her discipline, the Long Cycle.
She is very active as a member of the All Ireland Kettlebell Lifting Federation (AIKLF) in a campaign to make it an Olympic sport. In her Galway hub in the Hibernian FC premises on the Headford Road, Sarah coaches people who are interested in competitive Kettlebells and holds classes in the weight for people who just want to exercise.
“I love Kettlebells. I am passionate about them. I love their history too. The oldest Kettlebell is about 800 years old. They were used to weigh meat centuries ago and there’s evidence they were used in training for nearly 200 years.
“I love the way people can use them in exercising at different levels, starting with weights of four kilograms and going up to higher weights. I have been collecting them for years too, so I have them in every size.”
Sarah doesn’t do things by halves. Once she sets her heart on achieving something, she goes out and gets it, she says. A tall, slim — and very fit — blonde, Sarah has been combining healthy nutrition with exercise for almost two decades. In fact at the tender age of 17 she managed one of the first Evergreen Health Food stores in the city.
Since she was a child she has been helping out in her parents’ health store which they ran for 27 years in Ennis before opening up Open Sesame Healthfoods in Gort nine years ago. At the age of 21, she opened her own shop, Bliss, in the Eyre Square Centre. That has since closed so she could concentrate on exercise and her beloved Kettlebells. She ran the gym at the NUI Galway Kingfisher club until recently.
“For a while I ran an exercise class in my little rented house in Mill Street, but I also did house calls, lugging the gear in and out of my small car, but I loved it at the time,” she smiles.
She probably got her work ethic from her parents, Sally and Hugo, both English, who settled in Kilbeacanty, near Gort, to rear their family. Hugo was also a musician who played with the band Pyramid, formerly known as Love Biscuit. They were “a bit alternative” and home-schooled their children, including Sarah, until she reached the age of seven.
She has a natural curiosity and sense of adventure that must have been nurtured during those early years. Sarah has worked in Australia where she honed her gym skills and, having been brought up with organic food and natural products, she makes her own skincare rather than buy it – she has sensitive skin and wants to know exactly what’s she’s applying to her face.
For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.