Cork man who lived in derelict slaughterhouse for 40 years gets keys to home

John O'Donnell with Paddy O'Brien, elderly rights campaigner. John had grown up in a State institution in Cork, had left school at a young age, and started working as a teenager in the slaughterhouse near Blackpool. He worked there by day and slept overnight in its canteen, working as the night watchman. Pictures: Jim Coughlan.

A man who has spent almost 40 years living in a derelict slaughterhouse on the northside of Cork city has been given the keys to a new house — and with it, the chance of a new life.

And the people of Cork who have been moved by John O’Donnell’s plight have rallied to help furnish his new local authority home in historic Madden’s Buildings in Blackpool in the hope it will be ready for him to move into by the time he celebrates his 63rd birthday in August.