Michael on top of world after years on streets

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.