Enjoying the Galway Races just hours before life-changing attack

A young man relaxes at the Galway Races – never knowing that, just hours later, his life would be changed irrevocably because of a horrific brain injury sustained in a vicious unprovoked attack.

Shane Grogan was just 22, enjoying the Sunday card, the final day of the Galway Races in 2012.

Just a short while later back home in his native Tuam with his girlfriend, he was hit over the head with a piece of road kerbing.

Now – as Ballybrit prepares to welcome the crowds to the course again next week – his family hope that pioneering treatment in the UK will give him back some semblance of normality.

Three years on from this photo and that assault – and with his attacker now free after completing his sentence – Shane Grogan is 25 and is receiving treatment in England.

Shane’s father Joe Grogan and his wife Joan have been over and back to Leamington Spa Rehabilitation Hospital in Warwickshire where he is receiving expert treatment.

See full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune.