“I was absolutely shocked when I was told I had Parkinson’s because I had seen what had happened to my mother when she got it, but I was determined I was not going to let it beat me or at least that it would have to wait a long time before it beats me.”
Corkman John O’Leary (65) is reflecting on that day eight years ago when his world was upended when he learned he had Parkinson’s disease, a movement disorder of the nervous system which was first medically described in 1817 by pioneering English surgeon James Parkinson.
O’Leary had first been alerted he might have some condition when his family noticed his speech was occasionally faltering and becoming weaker, so he went to see his local GP in Ballyvolane, the late Dr Noel O’Regan, who sent him to see consultant neurologist Dr Sean O’Sullivan.
“There are no tests for Parkinson’s, it’s not like you do blood tests or anything, so that day I met Sean O’Sullivan – November 22nd, 2016 – he told me to walk across the room, and as soon as I sat down, he said, ‘John, you have Parkinson’s.’ ‘How did you know that?’ I asked, and he said, ‘I just saw from your walk, that your left hand doesn’t swing as fluently as your right hand and that’s a classic symptom of Parkinson’s.’ And that was how I discovered I had Parkinson’s.”
Eight years on, O’Leary is in a good place, determined to handle the diagnosis as best he can and not let Parkinson’s dominate his life, but he admits the news he had the disease shocked him, particularly given he had seen first hand the impact the disease can have.
“I was absolutely shocked because I had seen what had happened my mother. She had Parkinson’s for 24 years, and the last 11 years of her life were horrible – she was confined to bed, and it was very tough. I drove home from Sean O’Sullivan’s clinic that day and I just don’t know how I did it,” he says.
“Mary, my wife, was with me and I was very upset when I got home and she said, ‘Look, it could be worse, it could be motor neuron disease, it could be cancer – we’ll handle this.’ And I decided that day that I was not going to be beaten by this, I’m going to take it on – and that’s what I’ve done.”
A handy hurler and footballer in his day with Na Piarsaigh GAA club, O’Leary was working as a library staff officer with Cork City Libraries at the time. It was while working there that he learned about Cork patriot Joe Murphy and he decided to make more people aware of Murphy’s sacrifice.
Murphy, who was born in Lynn, Massachusetts, returned with his parents to Cork at a young age. In 1917, in the fervency of the aftermath of the Easter Rising, he joined the Irish Volunteers, eventually rising to the rank of Commandant of H Company, 2nd Battalion, Cork IRA No 1 Brigade. When he was arrested in 1920 by British forces for possession of a dud bomb used for training purposes, he joined 20 other men on hunger strike. He died on October 25th, 1920, after 76 days on hunger strike, on the same day as the Lord Mayor of Cork, Terence MacSwiney, in Brixton Jail in London.
O’Leary takes up the story: “I had a general interest in history, but I knew nothing about Joe Murphy. I worked in Ballyphehane library for 17 years and all the roads there – Pearse Road, Clarke Road, Connolly Road – are named after 1916 leaders, but I had no idea why there was a Joe Murphy Road.
“That was until I came across John Murphy’s song, The Boy from Pouladuff, about Joe Murphy, and once I heard that on YouTube, I just couldn’t get it out of my head, and I decided to set about producing a CD of original songs about Cork during the War of Independence.”
O’Leary lives just a few doors away from John Murphy in Ballyvolane and although they only knew each other to say ‘hello’ to, John approached the songwriter and asked him would he be interested in writing some songs to commemorate Cork’s role in the fight for Irish freedom. The result is, Cork 1920 – A City in Flames, a 12-song CD, 10 written by Murphy, including a ballad about murdered Cork lord mayor Tomás Mac Curtain, with well-known Cork balladeer Tim O’Riordan and Cork-based, English-born folk singer Cliff Wedgbury each contributing a song.
O’Leary, who retired from the library in 2021 after 42 years, set to work on the project. He approached Cork City librarian Liam Ronayne and received €4,000 from the It Seems History is to Blame project and also secured €6,000 from Cork City Council’s 1920-1923 Commemoration Fund.
Although the recording of songs at sound engineer Conor O’Sullivan’s Hidden Studios in Killeens, near Blarney, went ahead once the pandemic 5km travel restriction was lifted, Covid delayed the launch of the CD until 2021. Producing it led to O’Leary becoming involved with Cork film company Wombat Media, run by Ciara Buckley and David Slowo, and together they produced a half-hour documentary, The Making of a City of Flames.
“I would presume that most people who see me in the documentary will be a bit stunned at the idea that I have Parkinson’s because I don’t have any visible signs, but this was a project I took on to give encouragement to other people with Parkinson’s,” says O’Leary, now a grandfather to five-year-old Jack.
“I’ve a very positive attitude, but to have that you need support, and Mary and my son Donnacha and daughter Eimear have been fantastic – and of course, my neurologist Sean O’Sullivan, who is the most important person in my life outside of my family, has been a great support too.
“I’ve met others just diagnosed with Parkinson’s and I’ve told them, ‘I’m 65 now. Even if I never had Parkinson’s, when I’m 75 I will be a lot slower than what I am now and, if I get to 85, the same thing – life as you get older, it’s more or less the same as living with Parkinson’s – it just slows you down,’” he says.
“I know I have difficult times ahead and it will beat me in the end, but I’m going to make it wait – and what I want to do now is live my life to the best of my ability, and with the project I wanted to show others with Parkinson’s that we still can have aims and can still participate and can still contribute.”
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