'It was worth the fight': Disability campaigner finally moves into her own home

Earlier this year, Geraldine Lavelle told the 'Irish Examiner' about having to spend a decade in an institution. Now she tells SORCHA CROWLEY about her delight at having her own home

After almost a decade in a care home in Sligo, Geraldine Lavelle has moved into her own home in Castlebar, after the HSE confirmed it would provide care to enable her to have a place to call her own. Picture: Karen Cox

Pat Lavelle has to buy a bigger turkey this Christmas and he couldn’t be more delighted. His daughter — the disability rights campaigner, neuroscientist, and author Geraldine Lavelle — is finally back in her native Castlebar. Not just for Christmas, but for good.

Ms Lavelle knows more than most that change can happen in an instant, or sometimes a lot longer. Her destiny changed in a heartbeat one morning in October 2013 when a lorry knocked her off her bicycle, leaving her paralysed from the chest down. She fought for her life that day but didn’t know her longest fight was yet to come, one it would take a decade to win.