Galway man 'coming home for Christmas' after 14 years in care following unprovoked assault
Shane is non-verbal and requires round-the-clock care after he was struck by a brick to the head
After 14 years of life in care – following the vicious, unprovoked assault that utterly changed his life – Shane Grogan could finally be coming home for Christmas.
Now aged 37, Shane is non-verbal and requires round-the-clock care after he was struck by a brick to the head.
It was August 2012 when the 22-year-old suffered catastrophic brain injuries from the unprovoked attack just minutes from his home in Tuam after a day at the Galway Races.
His parents, Joe and Joan, live over the family travel agency on Shop Street in the town so have been unable to bring him home as it cannot be adapted for a wheelchair.
They bought a site on the Ballygaddy Road eight years ago with a derelict house and secured planning permission to build a home suitable for their son's needs.
That plan was delayed due to the Covid pandemic and then the war in Ukraine, which meant they had to reapply for planning. But 18 months ago, the site was cleared and building is almost complete.
Shane will have his own room with a hoist, a wet room to shower in and a nurse's room for carers.
Initially they plan to bring Shane out every day for seven hours and return to the Joe & Helen O'Toole Community Nursing Home at night, where he has lived for several years.
“It will take time to adjust to family life again. The staff are lovely, but he's spent most of his life in a room that's no bigger than a prison cell. When I go into that room, I close the door and put on music or an audio book, but you're still in another person's house,” Joe reflects.
“A home has a different atmosphere, at dinner time you'll have the smell of food cooking. Shane hasn't heard myself and Joan have a row in ten years.
“We have the van to bring him out for a day. It is going to be a gradual process, we have a plan and we have to be conscious of Shane's health, we're not far away so if there's an issue we can have a care assistant come down to him.
“Joan is very tuned into Shane, they're very close, she can pinpoint when something is wrong so all the trips to A&E have largely stopped.
“Sometimes he's very upset and you don't know what's wrong with him because he can't communicate. It could be something serious or it could be an itch.”
Over the years the community have raised around €300,000 for his care, which has been spent on rehabilitation at home and abroad. They also contribute to his nursing home care through the Fair Deal scheme. The Grogans are paying for the new house themselves.
Moving in together will be a big turning point for this close-knit family after so many tumultuous years.
In 2013, Shane Byrne, then aged 19 with previous addresses in Tuam and Tallaght in Dublin, pleaded guilty to reckless assault causing serious harm. He was sentenced to five years in prison, with the final two-and-a-half years suspended.
The family was disappointed with the length of the sentence but did not want the State to lodge an appeal against it.
“I had two-and-a-half years of anger and stress and I just had to let it go, I couldn't keep thinking about it. It would kill you to have all that anger and hate. A line's been drawn under it.”
They had high hopes that new technology would help Shane communicate.
A few years back, he underwent a trial with the University of Ulster where he wore a device like a scrum cap that was linked to the electrical impulses in his brain.
For a week, they asked him questions and monitored his responses on a laptop. But they've heard nothing since about the project.
Now that the builders have largely finished on site, the floors are going in, the kitchen will shortly be fitted and furniture is earmarked for arrival. All going well, the three of them could be in by Christmas.
But they are not putting themselves under pressure to finish by a certain date.
“Whenever it's finished will be a special day for the family. We just want him to be at home, even though it's not the home he remembers,” reflects Joe, who is also a local funeral undertaker.
“We'll have an auld shindig, a bit of music by a few local lads. It's a new venture for us as well - we've lived on Shop Street for 62 years.
“We can see our daughter Sarah's house across the park, so our three grandsons, Harry, Olly and Louie, can easily visit, so it's breathing new life into us as well.”