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Ep 85---

David Cryan grew up on a farm in Cloonloo, in a household where after-school hours meant feeding cattle, mucking out sheds and drinking raw milk straight from the cow. He went to St. Mary's secondary school in Boyle, mitched exactly once and got caught, and remembers the morning assemblies with Father Lavender or Father Early before everyone headed off to class.

From there, the conversation moves through the Boyle of the late 1980s and early 1990s, a town David describes as a place that was genuinely buzzing. He talks about working behind the bar in Parkers nightclub as a 17-year-old, the nights when you could not get through the door of the Moylurg before half nine, the factions and the fighting that were somehow just part of the culture, and the busloads of people coming over from Carrick-on-Shannon because Boyle was simply the better night out.

Then, in 1992, everything changed. David was involved in an accident and left paralysed. He was 20 years old. In the years that followed, he faced the reality of his situation largely without professional support, which simply did not exist in the way it does today. Alcohol became a way of coping, and he is honest about how that played out over a long stretch of years, until the death of a close friend became the moment that changed his direction. He gave up drink, started counselling, and began to deal with things properly.

David also touches on his brief but enjoyable time in local politics, filling a vacant seat on behalf of a cousin who passed away. He talks about his electric drive-assist wheelchair, the freedom it has given him to get around, and the gaps that still exist in accessibility across the town. He ends with a clear message to younger listeners: you have one life, and you are better off living it as yourself.

Check out the blog post for this episode - https://www.voicesofboyle.com/davidcryan

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Thanks to Brendan O' Dowd for creating and recording the musical piece for the podcast.