Don O'Leary: 'I can’t control the cancer, it’s there, but there are things I can control'
Cork Life Centre director Don O’Leary with his grandson, three-year-old Cian, after receiving an honorary doctorate from UCC for his contribution to education. Picture: Michael Mac Sweeney/Provision
It’s not dark yet. Don O’Leary is still showing up every day. He can’t control the cancer which he has been told will end his life, but he can control how he lives in the meantime.
O’Leary has been the director of the Cork Life Centre for the last 16 years. The centre, based in Sunday’s Well in the city, caters for young people who are not properly served by the education system. They might be, as the euphemism goes, troubled, or traumatised by events in their life, or have experienced addictions problems, or simply don’t have the wherewithal to negotiate an education system that has relatively strict parameters. As such, the Life Centre is working to ensure that as many young people as is humanly possible will reach their potential.
